Published in 1999, An Equal Music is the second winner of the Crossword Book Award, established in 1998 to honor, reward, and promote the work of Indian writers. Seth dedicated the novel, his third, and his last one to date, to French violinist Philippe Honoré, with whom he was in a relationship for a decade. The pair together marketed Honoré’s companion album An Equal Music (2000), which features performances of the chamber music highlighted in the novel, including Schubert’s Trout Quintet, Beethoven’s String Quartet in C Minor, Bach’s The Art of Fugue, and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, the latter inspired by the eponymous 1881 George Meredith poem.