“The late 60s and 70s were important for Suchen Christine Lim She grew up. She established and clarified her values and attitudes during those years, close after Singapore’s independence and in the first flush of the country’s development. Malaysia-born, she was conscious of ‘having chosen Singapore as my nation. … We were at the cross roads, trying to decide whether we should migrate. Would we have a future here? … So not surprisingly her book, Rice Bowl, captures the uncertainty, questioning and struggles of a group of young people in those early days.”
Caroline Ngui
The Straits Times, Singapore
****
“…Gift From The Gods intrigues. The situations will not surprise much, but the significance will certainly shock. Set in Malaysia and Singapore, in the post-war years and told in Pidgin English dialogue, the novel takes us deep into the world of Chinese ritual and surperstition in an age gone by. Yet it brings to the fore universal tensions as modern as modems – the strains between individual and society, between the freedoms of fantasy and the chains of folk belief and the fellowship of the clan.”
Koh Buck Song
The Straits Times, Singapore
“…the story begins with an entry from Yenti’s Journal where she says that all she knows about her father is that he ran into the jungle to join the Communists. … What I find especially interesting is Lim’s description of the tenement cubicles – the living quarters of poor families – usually situated on the upper floors of Chinese shophouses. Those who could afford a higher rent stayed in cubicles with windows while the rest sweltered in windowless rooms. The very poor rented space under stairways and along corridors. Lim’s creative strength lies in her ability to re-create the tensions and even the humour that results from living in such close proximity…”
Carol Leon
The New Straits Times, Malaysia
“Mother doesn’t talk about her past, that is, her real past. What she doesn’t want to remember doesn’t exist. If she knew I am writing about her roots and origins, she would be furious. Fortunately, since she cannot read English, the problem will never arise… The novel begins with Yoke-lin painfully giving birth to not a boy but a girl…Yoke-lin gives her daughter the Mandarin name Yenti because it means swallow, like a swallow flying high above sorrow. It is only when we come to page 50, Yenti’s Journal that we read the words quoted at the beginning and realize the novel is not by an omniscient author but by the daughter, living in a different time and place. Thus the story is mediated through a modern consciousness.”
Professor Peter Nazareth
University of Iowa, USA
****
“Fistful of Colours is a significant contribution to Singapore’s literature. The story is rich with local flavours and aroma, the characters are vividly drawn and believable, and I particularly empathise with the sad lives of the women in the story.”
Professor Tommy Koh
Ambassador-At-Large, Singapore
“It is fitting that Suchen Christine Lim’s third novel was the inaugural winner of the Singapore Literature Prize. If there were one work of local literature which has attempted to incorporate the history of all four of the city’s main racial groups within its covers, Fistful of Colours would be it. The protagonist is Suwen, a Singaporean Chinese college teacher and sometime artist who, at the start of the book, has mounted an exhibition of erotic paintings, shocking the strait-laced nation and resulting in many outraged letters to the press. But as readers delve into her family’s past and that of her friends’ families, they discover that the seething melting pot of old Singapore was a far cry from the sanitised version today.”
Stephanie Yap
The Sunday Times, Singapore
“This is a book you find difficult to put down once you start reading… The story begins with Suwen, recalling the day her stepfather tried to molest her. This event left her with emotional scars that inhibited her ability to express herself, either in communication with her friends or in her art. It took the betrayal of her friends Mark and Nica to release the pent-up emotions in her…”
Zalina Mohd. Lazim
Tenggara, Journal of SE Asian Literature, Malaysia
“…the novel presents different modes of narration and then breaks the imperatives of these modes, providing new perspectives, moving away from the linear to the spiral, calling like sculpture for three-dimensional perception. Providing the unwritten story, the novel breaks out of the traps of written texts, even the ones it provides …Lim is re-creating the Singapore identity out of a heterogeneous people yoked together by the demands and histories of various exploiters.”
Professor Peter Nazareth
University of Iowa, USA
****
“The tale begins with the arrival of Wong Tuck Heng in the fictional valley of Bandong in Malaya in 1874. Tuck Heng is a 15-year-old orphan who flees his village in Kwantung province because of political persecution. After his father, the village physician, posts a politically-inflammatory poem on a wall, the family is hunted down by the Manchu authorities. Tuck Heng’s hope is that Malaya will bring refuge and a new life. But his first encounter with the new land is a reminder of the insidious reach of the old. He witnesses the punishment of an adultress, who, by tradition, is stoned publicly and drowned in a pig basket. … Suchen Christine Lim’s fourth novel is her most ambitious so far. Lim has always been fearless in tackling a multiplicity of voices set against a broad canvas. But in this new book, she has surpassed herself.”
Ong Sor Fern
The Straits Times, Singapore
“Astonishing tour de force. You have created a physical and social landscape and peopled it with characters with real human feelings on issues of political import as well as on the everyday strains of personal and social survival. I can see why it might have upset ethnic groups wanting to see things in a particular way – you are able to articulate feelings from different perspectives of the same issue. And so many perspectives. As a child of immigrants who feels more Scottish in Italy or Ireland than I do in Scotland - I felt it said as much to me as to the descendants of the characters. So much of what is said about a country or a people is a projection of the wants, needs, and aspirations of the speaker. How that is understood by those who act or react is determined by the economic, social, and political climate it is heard in. And your book makes that flesh. And convincing, because the detail is so precise. And always a story - never a tract. Thank you.”
Martin Marroni
Poet & Flautist, Scotland
“Just a note to say how much I’ve enjoyed reading A Bit Of Earth. So much so that breakfast, lunch and bedtime took much longer because I was so engrossed in reading it! I was very impressed by the range and scope of the novel – how you pack in so much very fascinating history. Also how you deal with the conflict within families as it relates to a political situation. Tuck Heng is a wonderful character and I was totally hooked on his particular story. And you bring the whole thing to a splendid climax. I enjoyed learning so much about other cultures and was sorry to get to the end of the book!”
Diana Hendry
Poet & Writer
“Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed A Bit of Earth. I could not put it down once I started on it. I sat up to 4 a.m. on successive nights devouring the pages. Your story just gathered pace as it went along. It is the best novel written by anyone in Malaysia and Singapore, and Quayum agrees with me. Historically it is also important.”
Wong Phui Nam
Poet, Malaysia
"Tremendously Inspiring...My
name is Faraha Hamidi and I'm an English Literature major from
International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). I have just finished
reading your novel "A Bit of Earth" and all I can say is, I am in love
with the book. I
really love how you put the story together and present it in such a way
that the story has moved me in so many ways. It changed my
perspective on Malaysian
society. In many books that I have read,
the authors tend to be biased in their attempts to portray portions of a
community to which they do not belong, but I did not find any of that
sort in your book. .... 'A Bit of Earth'. It's "Unputdownable" (=P). I
love the relationship between Kok Seng and Omar. Their friendship is
pure. Regardless of their differences, their friendship thrived beyond
race and religion. They learnt from each other and sought each other's
comfort (through letters) in times of difficulties, which in some ways I
can relate to my experience- back when I was in primary school, I had
some Chinese friends whom I greatly treasure, and as far as our
friendships were concerned, there was not any differences in races and
religions. At least, that's what I felt. This novel has taught me that it does not matter where we live, and
with whom we do so, as long as we appreciate the fact that this bit of
earth is given to us to be shared selflessly despite our races and
beliefs. ...Take care Ms. Lim. Do continue writing. =)"
Faraha Hamidi
Malaysia
****
The Lies That Build A Marriage
“In The Lies That Build A Marriage, a paperback fiction and new title published by Monsoon Books Singapore, one straightaway senses that Suchen Christine Lim's efforts at writing and compiling a series of short stories, have been subtly designed to haunt and provoke a straitlaced but thoughtful Singapore with restless, stirring themes that hover like a dark cloud, over the classic immeasurable pain cradled by marginalised communities. … Lim, one of Singapore's foremost prized writers, draws on her vast writing experience to create bold but loving debates on the open secrets of homosexuality, measured immorality and even the dire consequences of racism….”
Suzan Abrams, Malaysian-Indian critic living in Dublin
Website - Kafez: Books & Writing, 24 Sept 2008
http://www.suzan-abrams.blogspot.com
“I was reading your book in bed this morning and actually (for the second time) burst into tears. It's so wonderful. The bit that made me cry were the last few lines about the Chinese step-father 'Gratitude is the best gift', that bit. Oh it is a superb book. I want to buy it for everyone…. and the story of the two mothers, with the generational slant, was so touching and wonderful I cried in that one too.”
Jill Dawson
Poet & Novelist, UK
“I have read the book more than once – something I rarely do! This is the best of your books if I may say so. It is not just that your writing style is finer and more at ease and fluid with a distinct flavour, but the subject is handled with much passion. A compelling passion that cannot be ignored and potentially life changing even for those uncomfortable with it – as you describe in your last chapter. The Amah Chiehs are not just people but persons from a neighbourhood. You are able to write about men’s feelings so tenderly – the Chinese stepfather is a deeply moving and heroic figure. The Morning After uses histrionics but touchingly tells a mother’s story without hyperbole. There were no words or no language to talk about being gay or being a stepfather or having aborted a child – at least not in Singapore – there is now. The world understands what you are saying and it seems that Singapore is ready for it.”
Dr Paul L J Tan, FRACP
Chief Executive Officer, New Zealand
“Ever since I heard her read one of the stories, I have been touched by the humanity and the tragedy that result in the breakdown of communication between people. Looking at the stories that she tells, every time a relationship broke down, it was because of the lack of communication. I also appreciate the book’s Singapore flavour having lived here for more than seven years now.”
Readers' comments