Govind Mishra is an Indian novelist, who has written more than 53 books. He was also a civil servant with Indian Revenue Service (IRS) and retired as Chairperson, Central Board of Direct Taxes in 1997. Over the years, he has written 11 novels, 14 short story collections, five travelogues, five literary essays collection, a poem collection and 2 story books for children. He has been awarded the most prestigious Hindi awards namely Vyas Samman (1998) and Sahitya Akademi Award (2008). He received Saraswati Samman for the year 2013 for his book Dhool Paudho Par published in 2008. This honour made him the second Hindi author to receive the honour after Harivansh Rai Bachchan in 1991. He was born on 1 August 1939 in Atarra, Banda, United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). His early education was completed in Banda, Uttar Pradesh, thereafter he did his BA and MA (English) from Allahabad University which in those days was known to be the "Oxford of the East". He taught for two years, graduate classes and in 1962 joined the Indian Revenue Service from which he retired in 1997 as Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes.