Quotes
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR CANADA READS 2016 • WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS’ PRIZE BEST BOOK (Canada and the Caribbean) • FINALIST FOR THE KIRIYAMA PACIFIC RIM BOOK PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE ETHEL WILSON FICTION PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION (now Women’s Prize) • WINNER OF THE GIUSEPPE BERTO LITERARY PRIZE FOR ITALIAN TRANSLATION • A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
“[A] big-hearted and compulsively readable novel . . . that ends in a highly satisfying way. . . . [Badami is] a gifted observer of the human comedy.” —Toronto Star
“Engrossing. . . . Badami brilliantly brings to life a whole cast of [characters]. . . . The author masterfully captures the sights, smells and sounds of this lively world without overwhelming readers. A welcome, sly humor runs throughout. . . . This book demands to be read straight through.” —The Washington Post
“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. . . . Anita Rau Badami doesn’t disappoint.” —National Post
“Confident and engaging. . . . Effortlessly compelling. A wise and affectionate portrait, sticky with domestic detail. Elegently written.” —The Independent
“Moving and thought-provoking. . . . A powerful journey through the minefields of the human heart. Don’t miss it.” —Glamour
“A skilled writer can convey epic events through the lives of ordinary people. Badami’s The Hero’s Walk, which deals with the transmutations of a millennia-old culture, is an outstanding example of such skill.” —The Commonwealth Writers Prize judges
“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
“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
“The Hero’s Walk is a wonderfully textured tale whose poignant events are imbued with truthfulness. Its sly wit and penetrating insights illuminate a bittersweet story which brings its reluctant characters close to redemption. It is a chronicle that echoes what Graham Greene once called the random shrapnel of human experience.” —London Free Press
“Sensitive, sensual and brilliantly imagined. . . . A family story which will enrich and amuse you.” —The Telegram
“She has an amazing knack for hauling together the beauty, mess, joy and folly of ordinary people’s lives.” —The Hamilton Spectator
“An unforgettable and heart-wrenching tale.” —Ottawa Citizen
“Her first novel was good, her second is marvellous. . . . Badami’s psychiological insight illuminates every scene [and] breathes authentic life into her characters. . . . Badami is a first-rate novelist. Read it.” —NOW
“One of the many strengths of this novel is how the author reaches deep into her characters, shares their surface and more profound thoughts and emotions, and conveys them to the reader.” —The Telegram
“Badami writes unflinchingly about a man both disappointed and disappointing. In her capable hands Rao is . . . entirely human, and vividly rendered. . . . This is Badami’s talent for storytelling: she imbues every sentence with compassion. . . . Her easy way with narrative weaves a rich and textured history, and she holds its various strands just taut enough. . . . Badami exercises control, playing out the consequences a little at a time, and then a little more. Badami may have made her name with Tamarind Mem, but it is The Hero’s Walk that will carry that name.” —Quill & Quire (starred review)
“Deeply resonant. . . . Badami’s portrait of a bereft and bewildered child is both restrained and heartrending. . . . Perfectly balanced by Badami’s eye for the ridiculous and her witty, pointed depiction of the contradictions of Indian society.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Compelling. . . . [A] lush evocation of Indian life . . . [with] often laugh-out-loud funny dialogue.” —Salon.com
“Deft and knowing. . . . Badami’s prose is lovely, almost poetic, and her ear for dialogue and the idiosyncrasies of her characters’ speech rings true. . . . An intimate look into the hearts and minds of a complicated, quarrelsome, yet deeply loving family.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
