A freelance writer, critic and translator, Lakshmi Holmström (1935–2016) was the author of The Novels of R K Narayan, editor of The Inner Courtyard: Stories by Indian Women, co-editor of Writing from India, a collection of Indian stories for young readers, translator and editor of Pudumaippittan: Fictions, an anthology of works by the Tamil writer. Her retelling of the fifth-century Tamil narrative poems Silappadikaram and Manimekalai was published in 1996. She translated the works of many contemporary Tamil writers, including Ashokamitran’s Water, Mauni: A Writers’ Writer, A Purple Sea: Short Stories by Ambai and Waterness by Na Muthuswamy. She also translated Karukku, the autobiography of Bama, for which she received the Crossword Award for Translation in 2000. She passed away in 2016.