Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?
Anita Rau Badami
'A great story gilded with gorgeous prose and vividly realised characters, all tethered to the drama and chaos generated by the partition of India and Pakistan ... Raw, funny, poignant and thought-provoking.'
(The Australian Women's Weekly)'With a fine eye for detail and a compassionate understanding of the expatriate world, Badami has crafted a book every bit as engaging as her prize-winning The Hero's Walk (2001).'
Susan Kurosawa (Weekend Australian)'An utterly engrossing and moving account of three Indian women which covers the period from the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 to the Air India bombing in 1985 … Badami’s feeling for place is matched, if not surpassed, by her ability to create characters that move off the page and into your mind — and she completes her trifecta of narrative with a splendid plot … This novel pulsates with humanity, and Badami’s richly textured narrative captivates the reader as it delineates with tenderness and wisdom the stories of individuals and of nations.'
(Edmonton Journal)Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? follows the lives of three Indian women, linked in love and tragedy, from the time of the British Raj through the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 up to the explosion of Air India flight 182 off the coast of Ireland in 1985.
There is Bibi-ji, who steals the heart of her sister’s fiancé and heads off with him to Vancouver, where she is haunted by the subsequent disappearance of her sister during the violence of Partition; her new neighbour Leela, who is trying to adjust to life in the West yet forever feels a ‘half-and-half’; and Nimmo, orphaned by the devastation that engulfed India after Partition, who is attempting to rebuild her life in Delhi. But, for all three, the conflicts of the past re-emerge with shattering results.
In the tradition of novels by Monica Ali, Zadie Smith and Jhumpa Lhiri, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? deals with the ever-present and devastating effects of the past on new immigrants, and the ways in which memory and myth, the personal and the political, are inextricably connected.
Anita Rau Badami is the best-selling author of Tamarind Mem and The Hero’s Walk, which won the Regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2001.
'[Badami’s] a born raconteur … Rich in echoes and irony and questions, this is one book in the growing catalogue of books we need to read to understand ourselves.'
(The Globe and Mail)' ... in the face of all this grimness, Badami has succeeded in writing a novel full of warmth and colour.'
Kerryn Goldsworthy (Sydney Morning Herald)'Though set against historical events, [Anita Rau Badami's] novel emphasises individual decisions and experiences. Both of these elements allow her lucid storytelling to fully involve the mind and emotions of her readers.'
Veronica Sen (Canberra Times)'Beautifully written … [a] gripping novel with superb dialogue … The best part of Badami’s book is her portrayal of strong, intelligent women attempting to make their way in the world, forging meaningful lives despite the constraints of cultural and religious expectations.'
(The Vancouver Sun)Anita Rau Badami
Anita Rau Badami's first novel was the hugely successful bestseller Tamarind Mem. Her bestselling second novel, The Hero’s Walk, won the Regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Italy’s Premio Berto Award and was also named a Washington Post Best Book of 2001. It was also on the longlist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and the shortlist for the Kiriyama Prize. Both novels have been published in many countries throughout the world. The recipient of the Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career, Badami currently resides in Montreal.
Website: http://www.anitaraubadami.ca/
Extent: 432pp
Size: 215mm x 140mm
ISBN (13): 9781921215377
RRP: $32.95
Pub date: March 2007
Status: Out of print
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