The Heros Walk, Anita Rau Badami
The Heros Walk, Anita Rau Badami
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The Hero's Walk

Author: Anita Rau Badami

Narrator: Laara Sadiq

Unabridged: 11 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 03/26/2019

Synopsis

After the release of Anita Rau Badami's critically acclaimed first novel, Tamarind Mem, it was evident a promising new talent had joined the Canadian literary community. Her dazzling literary follow-up is The Hero's Walk, a novel teeming with the author's trademark tumble of the haphazard beauty, wreckage and folly of ordinary lives. Set in the dusty seaside town of Toturpuram on the Bay of Bengal, The Hero's Walk traces the terrain of family and forgiveness through the lives of an exuberant cast of characters bewildered by the rapid pace of change in today's India. Each member of the Rao family pits his or her chance at personal fulfillment against the conventions of a crumbling caste and class system.

Anita Rau Badami explains that "The Hero's Walk is a novel about so many things: loss, disappointment, choices and the importance of coming to terms with yourself and the circumstances of your life without losing the dignity embedded in all of us. At one level it is about heroism - not the hero of the classic epic, those enormous god-sized heroes - but my fascination with the day-to-day heroes and the heroism that's needed to survive all the unexpected disasters and pitfalls of life."

About The Author

ANITA RAU BADAMI's first novel was the bestseller Tamarind Mem. Her bestselling second novel, The Hero's Walk, won the Regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize and Italy's Premio Berto, was named a Washington Post Best Book, was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize. Her third novel, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, was released in 2006 to great acclaim, longlisted for the IMPAC Award, and a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her fourth novel, Tell It to the Trees, was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the Quebec Writers’ Federation Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. The recipient of the Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career, Badami is also a visual artist. She lives in Montreal.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on January 27, 2013

I consider this book one of my sweetest finds. I came across it by happenstance, was mesmerized by the opening, bought it, and quickly disappeared into the plot. As others have noted, it is a quiet novel, showing the deeper meaning of the word “hero” while dwelling in the still spaces of everyday hu......more

Goodreads review by Matt on March 31, 2017

CANADA READS 2016 FINALIST I decided to begin my annual Canada Reads adventure with the Indian family tale, "The Hero's Walk." The tale opens in India as Sripathi Rao learns of his estranged daughter's death and his newfound status as next of kin for a granddaughter he has never met. Sripathi, a man......more

Goodreads review by Devika on February 07, 2019

I liked this one for the most part. Like so many books it begins well and retains a consistency, of characters, plot, narration and language right up to three quarters of the way. Then it seemed as if the author's steady train of thought was interceded by irregular neuronal activity. Which means the......more

Goodreads review by Camy on September 15, 2011

I seem to always gravitate towards books about India – there is something very intriguing about the family life, the traditions, richness of the culture, the ties to the Commonwealth – the sights, the sounds and the smells. There is just something "spicy" about novels set in India. The setting is fu......more

Goodreads review by iam on April 20, 2008

I REALLY liked this book. I will probably reread it sometime in the near future. There is page after page turned down to mark favorite snippets. The characters in this book are so wonderful. The author manages to do something that most others can't: She has made it clearly understandable how members......more

Quotes

"A big-hearted and compulsively readable novel. . . . [Badami is] a gifted observer of the human comedy." —Toronto Star

"A powerful heady mix of brilliant characters, poignant reality, and a rare depth of emotional integrity and commitment. . . . This is a book you will want to explore and savour." —The Telegram (St. John's)

"What a treat it is to read Anita Rau Badami. . . . The Hero's Walk is a novel of a traditional, nearly anachronistic, storytelling-as-transport kind; an escape, an entertainment—that mere but elusive thing most of us, after all, are seeking in good fiction." —National Post

"An unforgettable and heart-wrenching tale." —Ottawa Citizen

"The Hero's Walk is beautifully crafted—rich and lush. . . . It offers bittersweet epiphanies amidst life's tragedies and showcases a novelist on the move." —The Georgia Straight

"[Badami] has an amazing knack for hauling together the beauty, mess, joy and folly of ordinary people's lives." —The Hamilton Spectator

"Its sly wit and penetrating insights illuminate a bittersweet story. . . . [This] is a chronicle that echoes what Graham Greene once called the random shrapnel of human experience." —London Free Press

Awards

  • Canada Reads
  • IMPAC Dublin Award
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