Catherine Lim

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Catherine Lim (Chinese: 林宝音) is a Malaysian-born Singaporean, a Straits-born Chinese author, born in 1942, in Penang, Malaysia.

Publicity photo of Catherine Lim.

[edit] Biography and Career

Born Lim Poh Imm, Catherine Lim grew up in Kedah, Malaysia in a family of 14 children. Her mother married at 16 and had her first child at 17. In 1967, her family moved from the town of Kulim in Malaysia to settle in Singapore, in a house with three bedrooms, one toilet and a bathroom. Lim has two grown children who live abroad.

She published her first short story collection called Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore, which showed the wit with which Lim is able to portray Singaporean society. Another story collection that followed in this tradition was O Singapore: Stories in Celebration from 1988. Her first novel was published in 1982 and it was entitled The Serpent's Tooth. Other popular books that have been published since then were The Bondmaid (1995) and Following the Wrong God Home. Her major theme in her stories is the role of women in traditional Chinese society and culture. In 1998 Lim was awarded the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award and in 1999 she received the S.E.A. Write Award. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics.

In 1994, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong publicly castigated her for writing two politically critical articles in the Straits Times. The Prime Minister argued that if she wanted to voice her opinion on politics she should join a political party and her comments thus received a so-called "out-of-bounds marker."

In 2000, she worked with the (now defunct) web portal Lycos Asia to pen an e-novella. The effort was called "Leap of Love" and was sold online (at 19 cents a chapter) before it was published by Horizon Books in 2003. It is currently being turned into a film by Singapore's Raintree Pictures. It is directed by Jean Yeo and stars Wong Li-Lin and Ananda Everingham.

Her best-selling novel, 'The Bondmaid' (which sold 75,000 copies) is also being made into a film by Hong Kong director, Stanley Kwan, of 'Lan Yu' fame, starring Fann Wong.

[edit] Works

Novels:

The Serpent's Tooth, Times Books International, Singapore, 1982
The Bondmaid, self-published, 1995 (Orion 1997; foreign edns 1997, 1998)
The Teardrop Story Woman, Orion, London, 1998
Deadline for Love and Other Stories, 2001
Following the Wrong God Home, Allen & Unwin, London, 2001
Leap of Love, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2003 (a novella)
The Song of Silver Frond, Orion, London, 2003
Unhurried Thoughts At My Funeral, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2005

Short Story Collections:

Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1978
Or Else, the Lightning God and Other Stories, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1980
The Shadow of a Shadow of a Dream: Love Stories of Singapore, Times Books International, Singapore, 1987
O Singapore! Stories in Celebration, Times Books International, Singapore, 1988
They Do Return...But Gently Lead Them Back, Times Books International, Singapore, 1989
Deadline for Love and Other Stories, Heinemann Asia, 1992
Love's Lonely Impulses, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1992
Meet Me on the Queen Elizabeth, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1993
The Best of Catherine Lim, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1993
The Woman's Book of Superlatives, Times Books International, 1993
The Howling Silence: tales of the dead and their return, Horizon Books, Singapore 1999