Background

Catherine Lim was born on March 23, 1942, in Kulim, Kedah, Malaysia. She was the eighth from 14 children (four boys and ten girls) in a family of Chew Chin Hoi, a plantation accountant.

Education

Catherine Lim spent her childhood in the town of Kulim, Kedah, which borders with Penang, Malaysia. Like her siblings, Lim was educated in English-stream schools so she enjoyed reading British fiction, in particular, Enid Blyton, Richmal Crompton, and comics.

From 1949 to 1953, Lim attended the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus schools in Kulim and then spent four years at the same institution in Bukit Mertajam. In 1959, she entered Penang Free School and finished it a year later.

Then, Catherine pursued her studies at the University of Malaya where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 1963. Four years later, she relocated to Singapore.

In 1983, Catherine Lim enrolled at the National University of Singapore where she earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in five years.

In 1990, Lim participated at the Fulbright program and studied at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley. She came back to the University three years later to attend the courses of film scripting at the Department of Film and Television.

In 2000, Catherine Lim obtained an Honorary Doctorate in Literature from Murdoch University, Australia.

Career

Catherine Lim began her career as an educator. After her arriving in Singapore at the end of the 1960s, she has taught at different schools. In 1980, she became a deputy director of English Language and Social Studies with the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore and served in that capacity for five years. Three years after Lim left the post, the Regional Language Centre proposed her to lecture on the course ‘Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics and Methodology’. She served at the Centre till 1992 when she abandoned the post and devoted herself to full-writing.

Although Lim became a professional writer in the early 1990s, her first short story collection ‘Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore’ was published in 1978. It was followed by ‘Or Else, the Lightning God and other Stories’ two years later. Then came such volumes as ‘The Shadow of a Shadow of a Dream’ and ‘O Singapore!: Stories in Celebration’.

Lim is also the author of the novels ‘The Serpent's Tooth’ and ‘The Bondmaid’, and the more recent ‘Following the Wrong God Home’ and ‘An Equal Joy: Reflections on God, Death and Belonging’.

Achievements

• Catherine Lim is a highly regarded author in her adopted home of Singapore and is also a literary presence in the United States.
  
  The books by Lim were translated into many languages and included in the curriculum of the educational institutions in Singapore and abroad. The number of purchased copies of her best-selling novel ‘The Bondmaid’ attained 75,000. Her e-novella ‘Leap of Love’ was used by Raintree Pictures as a base for its 2008 movie ‘The Leap Years’.
  
  During her lifetime, she has received such awards as Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award and Southeast Asia Write Award. In 2003, the French Ministry for Culture and Communication named her the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, and three years later, she was appointed an Honorary Hans Christian Andersen Ambassador.
  
  In 2015, Lim’s ‘Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore’ was included in the list of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965-2015. The same year, the book was named by Akshita Nanda one of 10 classic Singapore books.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Catherine Lim Collection

    (This book consists of three celebrated short story collec...)

    2009
  • A Shadow of A Shadow of A Dream

    (This collection of eight short stories combines Catherine...)

    1986
  • The Howling Silence: Tales of the Dead and Their Return

    (In this collection of 14 short stories set in Singapore, ...)

    1999
  • A Leap of Love

    (Brimming with energy, the book sparkles with joy and will...)

    2003
  • Deadline for Love and Other Stories

    (The 12 stories in this collection electrify by their dazz...)

    1992
  • The Bondmaid

    (A little girl, Han, is sold, aged four, as a bondmaid or ...)

    1995
  • Little Ironies Stories of Singapore 1978
  • Or Else, the Lightning God & Other Stories 1980
  • They Do Return... but gently lead them back 1983
  • O Singapore!: Stories in celebration 1989
  • The Woman's Book of Superlatives 1993
  • The Serpent's Tooth 1982
  • Love's lonely impulses 1992
  • Miss Seetoh in the World 2011

Religion

Although Catherine Lim was raised in Taoist traditions she converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of fifteen. Later, the author became a humanist.

Politics

Catherine Lim’s articles “The PAP and the people − A great affective divide” and “One government, two styles” in which she criticized the then political party's activity provided her with controversial fame.

Views

Quotations: "I write because I enjoy it. I write about things that interest me – human behaviour, human relationships, the not-so-pleasant abilities people possess to deceive one another, seek revenge, inflict pain. And their capacity to bear it as well."

"I draw my inspiration and material from life around me; from people I’ve known."

"I’m so sensitive to irony that if I see a situation, I witness something, I hear something, I read a report in the newspaper about something, and I see it as potential for a short story, my ironic sense immediately creates a narrative and then I sit down and write."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "Lim’s main themes are the clashes between generations and cultures, the disparity of attitudes and lifestyles found amongst the various income-groups, and the discrepancy between society’s ever-improving economic profile and its state of moral poverty." Susan Ang, author

Connections

Catherine Lim married George Lim, an educator, and businessman, in 1964. The family produced two children, a daughter, who works as a doctor, and a son, who chose the profession of a journalist.

Catherine and George divorced in 1984.

Father:

Chew Chin Hoi

Ex-husband:

George Lim