Anita Rau Badami

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