Maithili Rao

Maithili Rao is a deeply thoughtful voice in Indian film writing—author of Smita Patil: A Brief Incandescence, a lyrical tribute to a star who burned bright, and The Millennial Woman in Bollywood: A New Brand?, where she unpacks the shifting portrayal of women in Hindi cinema. She co-edited The Oldest Love Story, a moving anthology on motherhood, and now returns with Travel Tales and Close Encounters, a collection of 29 stories by 24 voices, launching on 29 June in Hyderabad. Her writing spans decades and continents, appearing in The Hindu, Frontline, Film Comment, Man’s World and more. A former lecturer in English, Maithili turned to cinema through subtitling, and stayed on—becoming a juror at national and international film festivals and contributing to seminal books on Indian cinema. Always curious, always compassionate, hers is a gaze that listens as much as it sees.