Rani Manicka is a Malaysian-born novelist, educated in Malaysia and currently dividing her time between Malaysia and the United Kingdom. She graduated with a degree in economics.

Her debut novel, The Rice Mother, is infused with her own Sri Lankan family history and tells a vivid, imaginative story about the frailties of human nature and the consequences of war. This novel won a Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2003.

She has published several other novels, including Touching Earth in 2005, a dark and compelling tale of love, betrayal, and addiction, and The Japanese Lover in 2009, set in Malaya during the Japanese occupation, which is an absorbing story of unconventional love between captor and captured. Her latest novel, BLACK JACK, is out now.