He is best known as editor of Indian Literature, the bimonthly English journal of Sahitya Akademi (India's National Academy of Letters) which he edited till 2010.
[5] and Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (2022) edited by Sudeep Sen and published by Pippa Rann Books, [London].
The verse-fiction Ujjaini, based on the life of Kalidasa by O. N. V. Kurup, the doyen of Malayalam poetry, in Thomas's translation, won critical acclaim.
For translating the novel Keshavan’s Lamentions, by veteran Malayalam novelist M. Mukundan, he won the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2007.
According to Dr Tapan Kumar Pradhan, the Indian Literature Golden Jubilee Awards of Sahitya Akademi were the original brain child of A. J.