Sri Owen was born in West Sumatra in 1935, the eldest of six daughters, to parents who were both teachers. After secondary school, she attended Gadjah Mada University at Yogyakarta, where in 1961 she met Roger Owen, a young Englishman arrived fresh from Oxford University, with a three-year contract from the British Council as a lecturer. And he was recruited to teach Western History and English Language & Literature.

When his contract ended, Sri accompanied him back to London, where she worked for some twenty years as a translator, broadcaster and producer with the Indonesian Section of BBC Far Eastern Service. Sri and Roger spent two years travelling the world researching The Rice Book, which was first published in 1993 and won the prestigious André Simon Memorial Award, was shortlisted for the James Beard Award, and a year later, was listed in the Observer, among the twenty best food books published in English.

In total, Sri has written twelve successful cookbooks, most recently Sri Owen’s Indonesian Food, which chronicles her life and details the social history and cooking styles of the islands she loves. Sri is a popular international lecturer on Asian cuisine and has run cookery demonstrations, workshops and courses across the globe. Her unrivalled expertise saw her win the Guild of Food Writers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.