Anita Rau Badami

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.

After moving to Canada in 1991, she published her first novel, Tamarind Mem, in 1996.

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 2019, CBC Books included Badami on their "100 writers in Canada the world should read" list.