Writing from India

by Lakshmi Holmström (Editor), Mike Hayhoe (Editor)

Written and illustrated by Indians, this anthology from the new Figures in a Landscape series presents an image of another English-speaking region of the world. Like the other volumes in the series, it reflects universal themes, but it also portrays a particular sensibility and signposts a particular history by colonialism and its aftermath; pre- and post-Independence and Partition; regional identities; the rapid spread of industrialisation; the challenging of traditions and values, particularly by women.

142 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

Lakshmi Holmström MBE (1 June 1935 – 6 May 2016) was an Indian-British writer, literary critic, and translator of Tamil fiction into English. Her most prominent works were her translations of short stories and novels of the contemporary writers in Tamil, such as Mauni, Pudhumaipithan, Ashoka Mitran, Sundara Ramasami, C. S. Lakshmi, Bama, and Imayam. She obtained her undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Madras and her postgraduate degree from University of Oxford. Her postgraduate work was on the works of R. K. Narayan. She was the founder-trustee of SALIDAA (South Asian Diaspora Literature and Arts Archive) – an organisation for archiving the works of British writers and artists of South Asian origin. She lived in the United Kingdom.

In 2000 she received the Crossword Book Award for her translation of Karukku by Bama; in 2007 she shared the Crossword-Hutch Award for her translation of Ambai’s short stories, In a Forest, a Deer; and she received the Iyal Award of the Tamil Literary Garden, Canada, in 2008. In 2003–06, she was a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow at the University of East Anglia.

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to literature.

She died of cancer on 6 May 2016.