Anand is the pseudonym of P. Sachidanandan, a Malayalam writer and thinker. A number of his books have been translated into English, including Govardhan’s Travels (2006) and The Book of Destruction (2012). He is the recipient of the 1997 Sahitya Akademi Award and three Kerala Sahitya Akademi Awards for story, novel and scholarly literature in 1981, 1985 and 1994, respectively. Chetana Sachidanandan is a biologist and scientist at CSIR-IGIB in Delhi. Her translation of Anand’s Malayalam novel Samharathinte Pustakam as The Book of Destruction was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2014.