Shirley Geok-lin Lim (born 1944) is an American writer of poetry, fiction, and criticism. She was both the first woman and the first
Asian person to be awarded
Commonwealth Poetry Prize for her first poetry collection, Crossing The Peninsula, which she published in 1980.[1] In 1997, she received the
American Book Award for her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces.[2]
Biography
Lim was born in the state capital of
Malacca City and lived with her five brothers, but was abandoned by her mother during childhood.[3]
Her first poem was published in the Malacca Times when she was ten and by the age of eleven, she had decided that she wanted to become a poet.[1]
Lim was a professor in the English Department at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as being chair of the
Women's Studies Department, until her retirement in 2012.[1] She has also taught internationally at the
National University of Singapore, the National Institute Education of
Nanyang Technological University, and was the Chair Professor at the
University of Hong Kong where she also taught poetry and creative writing. She has authored several books of poems,
short stories, and criticism, and serves as editor and co-editor of numerous scholarly works. Lim is a
cross-genre writer, although she primarily identifies herself as a poet. Her research interests include:
Lim has received numerous literary awards, among which are:
Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer Award, 1996;
American Book Award, which she won twice, once with her co-edited anthology, The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology (1989), and the second time, with her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces (1997); and
Asiaweek Short Story award for "Mr. Tang's Uncles" (Feminist Press, 1997)
Books and articles
Memoir:
"Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian American Memoir of Homelands" (1996) (Chinese translation, 2001)
Fiction:
"Joss and Gold" (Feminist Press and Times Books International, 2001)
"Approaches to Teaching Kingston's The Woman Warrior" (1991)
"One World of Literature" (1992)
"Transnational Asia Pacific: Gender, Culture, and the Public Sphere" (1999)
"Writing Out of Turn" (Profession, 1999)
"Before Its Time, Of Its Time: The Transnational Female Bildungsroman and Kartini's Letters of A Javanese Princess" (Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 9(1&2), 1999)
"Asian American Literature: Leavening the Mosaic", in "Contemporary U. S. Literature: Multicultural Perspectives" (U.S. Society & Values, Electronic Journals of the U.S. Department of State (5)1, 2000)
"Power, Race, and Gender in Academe: Strangers in the Tower?" (MLA Press, 2000)
"Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing" (2000)
"English-Language Creative Writing in Hong Kong: Colonial Stereotype and Process," in Pedagogy 1(1) (Duke U P, Winter 2000)
"The Center Can(not) Hold: U.S. Women's Studies and Global Feminism" (American Studies International 38(3), October 2000)
"The Futures for Hong Kong English", co-authored with Kingsley Bolton (World Englishes 19(3) Special Issue, Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity, November 2000)
"Transnational Americans: Asian Pacific American Literature of Anamnesia" (Journal of American Studies 32(2), Winter 2000)
"Global Asia as Post-Legitimation: A Response to Ambroise Kom's 'Knowledge and Legitimation'". Mots Pluriels. (June 2000)
"Old Paradigms, New Differences: Comparative American studies", in Cultural Encounters (Stauffenburg Verlag, Spring 2000)
"Complications of Feminist and Ethnic Literary Theories in Asian American Literature", in "Challenging Boundaries: Gender and Periodization" (University of Georgia P, 2000)
Foreword to "Asian American Autobiographers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook" (Greenwood Press, 2001)
"The Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story". David Wong Louie. (Columbia U P, 2001)
Koh Buck Song (August 8, 1994) "Pot luck attractive metaphor for multiculturalism to Singapore's social context", The Straits Times (article applying Lim's reading of the "pot luck" concept of empowering multiculturalism to Singapore's social context)
Mohammad A. Quayum (2007) "An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim." Peninsular Muse: Interviews with Modern Malaysian and Singaporean Poets, Novelists and Dramatists, Oxford, UK:
Peter Lang
Newton, Pauline T. (July 2014). "Walking with her muse: an interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing. 8 (2): 123–135.
doi:
10.1093/cww/vpt005.