Anya P. Foxen teaches in the Religious Studies Program at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is a certified yoga instructor and long-time practitioner.

"The monograph is carefully edited, includes an index, and offers a thorough introduction. Scholars of modern yoga, metaphysical religion, and therapeutic spirituality will find Foxen's study to be a valuable resource for further research." -- Dominic Zoehrer, Religious Studies Review

"Anya Foxen's Biography of a Yogi offers a breakthrough in the study of modern yoga and popular spirituality. Her historical analysis alerts readers to the unexpected significance of Paramahansa Yogananda as well as American metaphysical religion, and explains how yoga took form in the transnational spiritual marketplace. Foxen meticulously documents and analyzes Yogananda's life and work, resulting in a new vision of guru-based movements and modern yoga at large." -Andrea R. Jain, author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture