Catherine Lim

Doyenne of Writers

Catherine Lim, 66, has published more than 10 collections of short stories, five novels, two poetry collections, as well as numerous political commentaries. She has received local and regional prizes, including three National Book Development Council awards, the Montblanc-NUS Centre For The Arts Literary Award and the Southeast Asian Write Award. Her short stories have also been used as literature texts for the O levels.
She was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2003, and in 2005 was appointed an ambassador of the Hans Christian Andersen Foundation in Copenhagen.

Born in 1942 in the town of Kulim in Malaysia, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Malaya in 1963. She received her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the National University of Singapore in 1988, and also attended Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990 as part of the Fulbright programme.

She immigrated to Singapore in 1967 at the age of 26, where she has lived ever since. Originally a teacher, she later became a project director with the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore and a specialist lecturer with the Regional Language Centre, teaching socio-linguistics and literature. She resigned to become a full-time writer in 1992.

She is divorced and has two grown children.