Anand Neelakantan

Anand Neelakantan Biography

Anand Neelakantan is an English author and cartoonist, known for debut novel - Asura tale of the Vanquished, a bestseller in the recent times. This book published in the year 2012 reached into the top seller charts within a week of its launch. This book became number 1 best seller of 2012 as per Crossword list and CNN IBN and was chosen as one of the six most remarkable writers of 2012 by DNA. He is also a columnist of many leading Indian newspapers like Deccan chronicle, Asian Age, The New Indian Express, The Wall Street Journal etc.

Born in Thrippunithura of Ernakulam district in Kerala on 5 December 1973, he completed BTech from Government Engineering College, Thrissur. Now he works in Indian Oil Corporation since past 15 years or so. Before becoming famous as a noted author, he has worked as a cartoonist for many leading Malayalam magazines. His first work, Asura tale of the Vanquished discusses about the good side of bad man of Hindu epic Ramayana, Ravana. Neelakantan has announced the launch of his second book Ajaya - roll of the dice, the epic of Kauravas and this book is scheduled to get published by the year end of 2013. His first book is translated and published in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi and Italian in 2013.

Thrippunithura is the hometown of Neelakandan and this town is situated near Kochi. This town has numerous temples and known for its religious celebrations as well. As he belonged to such a cultural place, he got fascinated with Kerala culture, folk stories, Hindu mythology etc. Anand was drawn to the anti-hero of the epic – Ravan and Asuras. Bhadra, a creation of Anand Neelakantan, tells half the story in Asura. Anand Neelakantan can arguably be addressed as the author who invented a new genre in Indian literature - counter telling of popular myths and folklores.

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Updated: April 01, 2014