Anita Rau Badami

Badami was born 24 September 1961 in Rourkela, Odisha, India, to a South Indian Kannada-speaking family.^[2]

She attended Sophia College, where she studied Social Communications Media, and received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Madras.^[3]

Badami married in 1984; her son was born in 1987.^[4]

In 1991, she immigrated to Canada, then attended the University of Calgary, where she received a Master of Arts in Creative Writing in 1995.^[3] In 1997, her thesis project was published under the title Tamarind Mem.^[3]

Badami began her career in India as a copywriter and freelance journalist.

After moving to Canada in 1991, she published her first novel, Tamarind Mem, in 1997.

In 2015 Badami was writer-in-residence at Athabasca University in Edmonton.^[5]

In 2017, Badami was chair of the Scotiabank Giller Prize jury.^[6][7]

Badami cites as among her favourite books Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Cat's Eye and Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul, and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.^[8]

In 2000, Badami won the Marian Engel Award to honour her body of work.^[3][7]

In 2016, The Hero's Walk was listed as one of the five finalists for the CBC Canada Reads competition.^[7][9]

In 2019, CBC Books included Badami on their "100 writers in Canada the world should read" list.^[10]

• Tamarind Mem. Viking Penguin. 1997. ISBN 9780670874552.^[14][15][16]
• The Hero's Walk. Alfred A. Knopf Canada. 2001. ISBN 9780676972252.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}
• Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?. Knopf Canada. 2006. ISBN 9780676976045.^[22]
• Tell It to the Trees. Knopf Canada. 2011. ISBN 9780676978933.^[23]