THE HERO'S WALK
by Badami, Anita Rau
- Used
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- Very Good+/Very Good+
- ISBN 10
- 067697225X
- ISBN 13
- 9780676972252
- Seller
-
Burlington, Ontario, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Born in the eastern town of Rourkela, Badami spent her childhood drifting around India as her father, a mechanical engineer and train designer, was transferred frequently. Her family moved at least eight times before she was twenty. Since her parents both spoke different Indian dialects, English was the bridging language for the family. (Badami's second language is Hindi.) The convent nuns who took care of her schooling were not always a receptive audience for Badami's budding literary talents. "Dear child," one of her teachers commented in response to a writing assignment, "what big lies you tell. Please ask your mother to see me." At school the nuns taught Greek and Roman myths, and even Celtic tales. "The only mythology I don't remember learning in school was Hindu mythology," Anita recalls. At home, however, Badami was immersed in the cultures and myths of her family and the multilingual railway workers. This mélange of myths informed Badami's formidable storytelling ability and shaped the exploration of heroism that runs throughout her latest novel. In 1991 Anita Rau Badami left Bangalore in southern India to join her husband in Calgary, where he went to pursue his Masters in Environmental Science and then to Vancouver for a PhD in Planning. Arriving with their four-year-old son and five hundred dollars, the family was soon ensconced in a depressing basement apartment. To earn money, the former journalist, ad copywriter and children's writer ended up selling china in a mall. Of this time, Badami says, "I learned an awful lot about figurines and place settings, but I also made the most wonderful friends." Badami began taking creative writing courses and wound up with Tamarind Mem, her master's thesis project at the University of Calgary. She sent the manuscript to Penguin Canada and quickly found herself a bestselling author with a reputation as a talented new Canadian writer. Her stories of home and away, of here and there, made her a part of the tradition Badami refers to as the post-postcolonial-immigrant school that began with Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children . "I don't think I could have written a novel if I had not left India," Badami said in an interview with The Globe and Mail . "I find that the distance gives me perspective and passion. I was twenty-nine years in India and ten years here, so I have a foot in India and a couple of toes here. I am both doomed and blessed, to be suspended between two worlds, always looking back, but with two gorgeous places to inhabit, in my imagination or my heart." Just after the publication of The Hero's Walk , Anita Rau Badami won the prestigious Marian Engel Award, given to a Canadian woman author in mid-career for outstanding prose writing. (Previous recipients include Carol Shields, Jane Urquhart, Bonnie Burnard and Barbara Gowdy.) Most recently, The Hero's Walk was optioned for film by a Canadian producer of See Spot Run Films in Los Angeles.
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Details
- Bookseller
- W. Fraser Sandercombe (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 219481
- Title
- THE HERO'S WALK
- Author
- Badami, Anita Rau
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good+
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good+
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 067697225X
- ISBN 13
- 9780676972252
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf Canada
- Place of Publication
- Toronto
- Date Published
- 2000
- Size
- 8vo
- Keywords
- tamarind man; india; indian; toronto; autograph; autographed; canada; canadian;
- Bookseller catalogs
- Literature;
Terms of Sale
W. Fraser Sandercombe
Credit card orders may be made through Biblio.com or through PayPal . Personal cheques or International (outside Canada) money orders made payable to W. Fraser Sandercombe. Within Canada, e-mail money transfers work out just fine. All prices are in U.S. dollars. Regardless of the book's weight, we rarely ask for extra on the shipping. Books are usually mailed within two business days of receiving payment. If you decide, for any reason, you don't want the book after all, you may contact us within one week and we'll arrange a return. Drop-ships are welcomed but no refunds can be given on a book sent to a third party.
About the Seller
W. Fraser Sandercombe
About W. Fraser Sandercombe
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Headband
- A strip of colored material attached to the text block at the top of the spine of a hard cover book. The same treatment applied...
- Rubbing
- Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
- Good+
- A term used to denote a condition a slight grade better than Good.
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...