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

Personal life and education

Badami was born 24 September 1961 in Rourkela, Odisha, India, to a South Indian Kannada-speaking family. She attended Sophia College, where she studied Social Communications Media, and received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Madras. Badami married in 1984; her son was born in 1987. In 1991, she immigrated to Canada, then attended the University of Calgary, where she received a Master of Arts in Creative Writing in 1995. In 1997, her thesis project was published under the title ''Tamarind Mem. ''

Career

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. In 2017, Badami was chair of the Scotiabank Giller Prize jury.

Influences

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.

Awards and honours

In 2000, Badami won the Marian Engel Award to honour her body of work. In 2016, The Hero's Walk was listed as one of the five finalists for the CBC Canada Reads competition. In 2019, CBC Books included Badami on their "100 writers in Canada the world should read" list.