ANITA RAU BADAMI is the author of four critically acclaimed, bestselling novels: Tamarind Mem, The Hero’ s Walk, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? , and Tell It to the Trees. Her novels have been published in several countries including the U. K. , U. S. A. , France, Germany, India, and Spain. She was previously a freelance journalist, and her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines in Canada and abroad. In 2000, she won the Marian Engel Award for excellence in fiction for a body of work. This same year, The Hero’ s Walk was nominated for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize for Fiction. It also won the 2001 Commonwealth Prize for the Caribbean– Canada region and was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.