Catherine Lim has enjoyed two parallel lives as a Singaporean writer. She has written five novels and more than 10 collections of short stories, some of which are now used as literature texts in the city state's education system's O-level examinations. She is also a well-known political commentator whose writings have at times caused a stir.
Up to now, she has kept fiction and politics separate but for her sixth novel, Miss Seetoh in the World, Lim blurs the the line. 'This is the first time that I have built a political component in a major way in one of my novels. I wanted to see if I could handle it,' she says.
Born in 1942 in Kulim, Malaysia, Lim immigrated to Singapore in 1967 and has lived there since. Originally a teacher in a secondary school - teaching English language and literature - and then a specialist lecturer with a regional language centre, she started writing short stories in 1974 as part of a course project. Her first book, Little Ironies: Short Stories of Singapore, was published in 1978 and was immediately successful. 'After that, there was no looking back,' she says.
Since then she's published a host of short stories, including a few satirical ones, as well as numerous poems and even a semi-biography, Unhurried Thoughts at My Funeral, in 2005.
Lim says her stories are anchored in reality, usually her childhood memories. 'I've got a very fertile imagination, but it still needs to work with reality and recollect facts. I couldn't write purely out of imagination; I've got to use facts. But then my imagination comes and dresses things up,' she says.
Having grown up in a superstitious Hokkien Chinese family with 13 siblings, she has always been fascinated with the supernatural and myths and legends, recurring themes in many of her writings, even though she says she does not believe in ghosts. 'I'm actually as agnostic as they come. But as a child I lived in an atmosphere supercharged with the supernatural, being reminded daily of the ghosts of ancestors who you must pay obeisance to with joss sticks,' she says.
She remembers being told by her mother each time after playing under a tree or in a field to pray to the deities resident there to forgive any offence caused. She draws heavily on this aspect of her upbringing which enables her to create a special atmosphere in her writing. 'I loved the dream effect,' she says.