Ashok Kumar Banker (born 1964) is a novelist and short story writer born and living in Mumbai, India. He has written professionally since his early teens, and has worked as a print journalist, columnist, scriptwriter for television series and documentaries, and in advertising.
Banker has published in several genres, ranging from contemporary fiction about urban life in India to multi-volume mythological epics, as well as science fiction, fantasy, and cross-genre works. His first three novels to be published were crime thrillers, claimed to be the first written by an Indian novelist in English. They gained him widespread attention and a reputation for being a crime novelist that has clung to him despite his not having written crime novels since [1], though he has written short crime fiction, some of which involves characters from the novels [2]. The stories of his "Devi" series are short works featuring avatars of the Hindu goddess Devi, and have appeared in various science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazines.
Bibliography
The Ramayana series:
- The Prince of Ayodhya (2003)
- Siege of Mithila (2003)
- Demons of Chitrakut (2004)
- Armies of Hanuman (2005)
- Bridge of Rama (2005)
- King of Ayodhya (2006)
The Mahabharata series:
His other novels include:
- The Iron Bra (1993)
- Murder & Champagne (1993)
- Ten Dead Admen (1993)
- Vertigo (1993)
- Byculla Boy (1994)
- The Missing Parents Mystery (1994)
- Beautiful Ugly (forthcoming)
