PRESS RELEASE
The adult novel, tentatively titled, Tara, is possibly the world’s first love triangle. A story of unrequited love, jealousy and betrayal, the story is about one beautiful woman and two brothers who would do anything to win her.
The children’s book will be an illustrated book about birds and animals of Indian mythology.
Anand Neelakantan states, ‘It has been my childhood dream to write for Penguin and I am delighted to be able to publish two books with Penguin Random House India.’
Milee Ashwarya, Editor-in-Chief (Commercial and Business) at PRH, comments; ‘Anand is one of the best writers of mythology in the country today and it has been my dream to publish him. I welcome him to the Penguin Random House family and hope we delight the readers with many more valuable works.’
Hemali Sodhi, Publisher (Children’s) at PRH, says, ‘We are tremendously excited at Anand Neelakantan’s foray into children’s writing with Puffin. He is an incredible storyteller and we’re delighted he will also be writing for a younger audience. We’re sure the young readers will be enthralled by his unique and exciting narrative style. The idea for the children’s book is fantastic, and we cannot wait to publish him in Puffin!’
About the author:
Anand Neelakantan is the author of the Bahubali trilogy, the official prequel to S S Rajamouli’s prequel. The first book in the series, Rise of Sivagami, was released on March 15th, 2017 and continues to be the best-seller number 1, across charts. The book is in top 5 of Amazon best-sellers of 2017.
He is also the best-selling author of Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, which told the Ramayan from Ravan’s point of view. Anand followed it up with the tremendously successful Ajaya series which told Duryodhana’s Mahabharata. Both Asura and Ajaya were shortlisted for Crossword award in 2013 and 2014 respectively. All the books of Anand have been translated to more than 9 languages including Indonesian. Asura is 6th among the 100 books to be read in a lifetime list of Amazon.
S S Rajamouli has announced a mini-series on Anand’s books in the lines of Game of Thrones in an international channel.
Anand has also written script/screenplays for hugely popular TV series like ‘Siya Ke Ram’, ‘Ashoka’, ‘Mahabali Hanuman’, etc. He writes columns in The Hindu, Indian Express, The Pioneer, Washington Post, etc. and writes a fortnightly column called ‘Acute Angle’ in Sunday Express. He has upcoming series in Discovery channel, Star TV, Netflix and Amazon to be aired in 2018.
Anand is also a prolific writer in Malayalam and regularly publishes his stories in prestigious literary Malayalam Magazine. Anand is a cartoonist too who has many of his works published.
He lives in Mumbai with his wife Aparna, daughter Ananya, son Abhinav and pet dog, Jackie the Blackie
Facebook; Twitter; Instagram: @itsanandneel