Anita Rau Badami (born 24 September 1961) is a Canadian writer of Indian descent. Born in Rourkela,

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

, India, to a South Indian

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

-speaking family, she was educated at the

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

and

Sophia Polytechnic Sophia College (Autonomous) is an undergraduate women's college established in 1941 by Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is affiliated to the University of Mumbai. The governing body of The Society for the Higher Education of Women in I ...

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

. She emigrated to Canada in 1991, and earned an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

at the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

. Her first novel was ''Tamarind Mem'' (1997). Her novels deal with the complexities of Indian family life and with the cultural gap that emerges when Indians move to the west.Badami's third novel, ''Can You Hear the Nightbird Call'' explores the Golden Temple Massacre and the Air India Bombing. Badami cites as among her favourite books ''

Midnight's Children ''Midnight's Children'' is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postc ...

'' by

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

, '' Cat's Eye'' and '' Surfacing'' by Margaret Atwood, ''

A House for Mr Biswas ''A House for Mr Biswas'' is a 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul, significant as Naipaul's first work to achieve acclaim worldwide. It is the story of Mohun Biswas, a Hindu Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who ma ...

'' by

V. S. Naipaul Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...

and ''

Housekeeping Housekeeping is the management and routine support activities of running an organised physical institution occupied or used by people, like a house, ship, hospital or factory, such as tidying, cleaning, cooking, routine maintenance, shopping, ...

'' by

Marilynne Robinson Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and t ...

. In 2015 Badami was writer-in-residence at Athabasca University in Edmonton. In 2016 '' The Hero's Walk'' was listed as one of the five finalists for the CBC Canada Reads competition. In 2017, Badami was announced as chair of the 2017

Scotiabank Giller Prize The Giller Prize (sponsored as the Scotiabank Giller Prize), is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried competition be ...

jury."Introducing the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury"
''

'', January 16, 2017.

Bibliography

*''Tamarind Mem'' - 1997 (U.S. title: ''Tamarind Woman'' - 2002) *''The Hero's Walk'' - 2001 *''Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?'' - 2006 *''Tell it to the Trees''- 2011

References

External links

A conversation with Anita Rau Badami

Anita Rau Badami fan pageRecords of Anita Rau Badami are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare BooksRecordings of Anita Rau Badami are available online in the Unarchiving the Margins Collection at Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rau Badami, Anita 1961 births 20th-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Canadian novelists Indian women novelists Living people Indian emigrants to Canada People from Rourkela Canadian women novelists Canadian writers of Asian descent Canadian people of Indian descent English-language writers from India Sophia College for Women alumni 20th-century Indian women writers 20th-century Indian writers 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Sophia Polytechnic alumni Women writers from Odisha Novelists from Odisha Writers from Vancouver 20th-century Canadian women writers