Showing results by author "Catherine Lim" in All Categories

There is a wonderful ancient Western tradition that allows a woman to propose to a man–but only on 29 February. Only once every four years, in a leap year. On such a momentous day, late one morning in modern day Singapore, young and beautiful Li-ann catches sight of Jeremy for the first time in a busy part of town. She realises with a start that he is her dream man and makes the move allowed by the Leap Year tradition. It is the most creative, imaginative and brilliant move any girl can think of. Jeremy is totally enthralled. Their first meeting is radiant with love's promise.

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.

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, etc. decrees otherwise. She is thrown into the tumult of a disastrous marriage that begins as strangely as it ends, a failed love affair that 'hollows her out', and a controversial teaching career that ends with her abrupt resignation.

A boy is given a girl's name so that he can escape the attention of malignant ghouls. A devout Catholic priest is suspected of hanky-panky with a submissive Chinese wife when she gives birth to an albino child. A young girl student dies before her English examinations, but still manages to write an out-of-point essay for the Cambridge Syndicate. From societal superstitions and the imagination come these 15 tales of the paranormal.

Catherine Lim's free-wheeling imagination cheerfully dispenses with all constraints to tell stories of that other world. Written with an exaggerated sense of earnestness and caution, the eighteen tales in this collection elicit in the listener the very goosebumps of terror she had herself experienced as a child listening to such tales.