Catherine Lim, 'About Mother'

Image: Mum (after Daumier), 1994, conte and wash, 50x35cm

This short article was written by my sister, Catherine for my exhibition ‘Facets of a Woman’ in Singapore 1995.

A simple housewife in a small town, who brought up fourteen children, Mother was remarkable for her creativity. This was evident in her capacity for creating and telling stories. Mother made story- telling an art. Children in the neighbourhood gathered to hear her spin her dazzling yarns of gods, goddesses, emperors and ordinary village people, tales often underlain by much folk wisdom. For a while, Mother even began to write stories, turning out family sagas on cheap, lined copybooks, in the best tradition of Hong Kong movies. Here she was severely handicapped by an incomplete education, a limitation that must have been most frustrating to her creative energies. They remain alive, however, in her old age, and there is nothing mother enjoys more than yarn with family and friends.

Catherine Lim

April 1995


A best-selling Singaporean fiction author, Catherine Lim has published more than 10 collections of short stories, five novels, two poetry collections and numerous political commentaries. She was awarded the Honorary Doctorate in Literature from Murdoch University and Southeast Asia Write Award.