Catherine Lim: 13 books

This book consists of three celebrated short story collections and an early novel, each reflecting Lim’s prowess as a storyteller chronicling a society in transit, where multiethnic characters struggle with their identities as the past and the present intersect, mingle and clash. The Serpent’s Tooth...

“I have noticed, increasingly, that people after the age of 65 or thereabouts begin to experience the fear of death in a very palpable way. While in their childhood and youth they had viewed death as happening only to grandparents, while in middle age they could still afford to relegate death to...

A wonderful new novel from Catherine Lim - a modern love story of east meets west set in the author's native Singapore. Never before has Yin Ling appeared in such splendour. Perched in the bridal car with her mother-in-law to be, in layers of unaccustomed make-up, bedecked with the jewels of...

The living and the dead there is something that binds them. For the living are endlessly fascinated by tales of the dead, whether they are about an old ancestor whose ghost reputedly haunts an old ancestral home about to be torn down; a child never allowed to be born, whose little frightened call...

An exotic, beguiling love story set in 1950s Singapore. 'It was a special protection from the gods that Silver Frond's beauty manifested itself only after the barbarians had left? A beautiful child-woman, in that intriguing in-between stage when people could not tell where innocence ended and...

Miss Maria Seetoh, a teacher of English and Literature in St Peter’s Secondary School in Singapore, sees herself as a ‘simple soul who only wants to be a good and happy person’, and has a dream to write stories about ‘simple, ordinary people going about their daily lives’. However, God/ Providence/Fate/Chance,...

This collection of eight short stories combines Catherine Lim’s sharp powers of observation with her insightful comments on the conflicts, both internal and external, brought about by love in the lives of men and women in modern-day Singapore. The result is a vibrant assortment of stories and voices...

The 12 stories in this collection electrify by their dazzling diversity of subject, their relentless observation and comment and their adroit use of language. Through the dark labyrinths of the secret lives of men and women in Singapore, Catherine Lim once again uses her sharp powers of observation...

A story set in 50's Malaya at the height of the communist guerilla activity. This is a backdrop for a story of love, passion, desire and duty as a beautiful married chinese women, Mei Kwei, falls in love with a priest who saves the woman caught with Mei's husband from public embarrassment.

A little girl - Han - is sold, aged four, as a bondmaid or slave into the House of Wu, where she grows up and falls in love with the young heir. But the idyll of childhood attachment turns into a nightmare as Han, beautiful, proud and uncompromisingly loyal, struggles against the forces of tradition...

30 stories about ordinary Singaporeans at their best and worst, their joys and griefs and angers, their dreams fulfilled or lost. They are tales about the awesome human condition and the even more awesome human spirit, interweaved with the author’s vignettes of her nearly 50 years in Singapore, such...

There is more to the culture than what's cooking in the peroh rumah, or kitchen. For instance, have you ever wondered why they speak the way they do? And what is the big deal about cherki games? Why are they always singing the dondang sayang? And, more importantly, what does it mean to be a Peranakan?

You are probably familiar with the spicy Peranakan cuisine or even have friends who are great at cooking it.  But there is definitely more to the Peranakan culture than what's cooking in the kitchen. Have you ever wondered why they speak the way they do? And what is the big deal about cherki...