Ashok Mathur's debut novel, Once Upon an Elephant, was a hilarious murder mystery steeped in Hindu mythology and starring elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesh.
The Short, Happy Life of Harry Kumar continues Mathur's playful jaunt through mythology, this time blending the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, with the geography of Canada and Australia. Harry Kumar is an unlikely hero who finds himself vaulted into a globe-trotting quest to rescue his closest friend and confidant who's been kidnapped by a mysterious villain. With his travelling companion, a somewhat high-strung dog named Hanuman, Harry becomes embroiled in the odd politics that govern our world--and his own history. On the move, Harry's fantastic, twisting trail takes him to BC's Gulf Islands, Toronto's Islands--and to islands beyond--all in search of a woman, his best friend and perhaps lover, in a twisting tale of fate and the backwardsand forwards of time.
The Short, Happy Life of Harry Kumar explores the world in the context of islands, prisons, and the retelling of stories from the distant and not-too-distant past.
Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Fiction Prize (Canada-Caribbean section).

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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• Short-listed, Commonwealth Writers Prize

The narrative has an exuberance and breadth . . . Mathur possesses a comic touch that is deft, light, and dry.
-Quill & Quire

Quill & Quire