A J Thomas

A. J. Thomas is an Indian English poet, translator and editor with more than 20 books to his credit. He has two poetry collections in English and in Hindi translation, respectively. His poems have been featured in more than ten international and national anthologies. He has edited more than ten books of poems of various poets besides anthologies. He has edited, in various capacities, Indian Literature, the bi-monthly English journal of the Sahitya Akademi (The National Academy of Letters, India), for about eighteen years in three stints. He is the Co-ordinating Editor for Malayalam in the Tamil Nadu government's project 'Disathorum Draavidam', for translation of literature books from Tamil to English and other Indian languages, and from those languages into Tamil at a later stage. He holds M.Phil. and PhD degrees in English (Translation Studies). He taught English at Benghazi University, Ajdabiya Branch, Libya, from 2008 to 2014, and was also a Senior Consultant at IGNOU. He is the translator of illustrious writers like O. N. V. Kurup, Paul Zacharia and M. Mukundan, and editor of books by U. R. Anantha Murthy. He co-edited Best of Indian Literature (1500 pages in two books and four volumes, Sahitya Akademi). In November 2023, his The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told — an anthology of 50 short stories which are modern classics of the last 100 years, selected and translated by him — was commissioned by Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, and remains on the best-seller list in India; it also placed him on the shortlist of the Crossword Award 2024 in the best-seller category, and won the V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award in May 2025 and the UNESCO Heritage Literature City Award of Kozhikode Corporation for Translation from Malayalam to Other Languages. His latest release, 100 Indian Stories, in February 2025, is again on the top-selling list. His translation of N. Mohanan's novel Orikkal became a social media sensation with phenomenal sales, mainly among Gen-Z, and was published jointly by HarperCollins Publishers India and DC Books, Kottayam, in April 2025. Besides the Crossword Award and V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award, he has received the Katha Award, the AKMG Prize (which enabled him to tour the USA, UK and Europe in 1997), and the Vodafone Crossword Award (2007). He has been a jury member of many prestigious awards, including The Hindu Litfest Award and the Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Poetry Prize, attached to the Jaipur Literature Festival. He holds the Senior Fellowship, Department of Culture, Government of India, and was Honorary Fellow, Department of Culture, Government of South Korea. He has been invited as a guest speaker in writers' conferences and readings in South Korea (thrice), Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Nepal, besides centres all over India.