Once Upon an Elephant is a contemporary tale of Hindu deity Ganesh and what happens when worlds, cultures, and stories collide.

A whimsical, contemporary retelling of the creation story of Ganesh--the elephant-headed Hindu deity--Once Upon an Elephant is rife with humour and political satire.

When the police find unusual boy parts--a young man's head and an elephant's body--they assume a murder has been committed, and the case goes to trial. But the appearance of Vighnesvara, a manifestation of Ganesh with the body of a young man and the head of an elephant, in the courtroom of ultra-conservative Judge McEchern throws things into chaos.

Around the world statues of Ganesh are drinking offered milk, and poor Judge McEchern has troubles enough with his carnival court: witnesses who testify in languages other than English, testimony from an accused who grows extra arms at will, and a murder victim, with the head of an elephant, who refuses to stay dead.

Ganesh is known as the lord of obstacles, and Once Upon an Elephant is strewn with them, twisting, turning, and thwarting expectations about race, class, and sexuality, all within a page-turning murder mystery.

Ashok Mathur was born in Bhopal, India, and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1962 when he was one year old. Journalism school followed high school, and by 1981 Ashok was working as a photojournalist with small Alberta dailies and freelancing for magazines and wire services. "I was interested in how the visual image told a story," he says.
In 1985 Ashok returned to school, completing bachelor and master of arts degrees at the University of Calgary, after which he started teaching at the University and the Alberta College of Art. "It was then that I became involved in community activism," he recalls. Ashok sat on the board of the New Gallery, an artist-run centre, and joined the editorial board of the literary magazine absinthe.
"All the while I was fascinated by the process of literature and publishing," remembers Ashok. So he and co-founder Nicole Markotic started disOrientation chapbooks with the intent "to publish relatively unheard voices in a chapbook format."

Ashok also became active in Minquon Panchayat, an activist artist collective comprised of First Nations artists and artists of colour that addressed racism in the arts on a national level.
Currently, he is the Director of the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia.
He is the author of three novels published by Arsenal Pulp Press: Once Upon an Elephant , now in its second printing; The Short, Happy Life of Harry Kumar, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize; and A Little Distillery in Nowgong, published in 2009. He also authored the poetry book Loveruage: a dance in three parts, published by Wolsak and Wynn.

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Mathur's novel is as funny as it is smart . . . the tone is wry, sly and perfectly suited. -Toronto Star