Author Teresa Lim talks to us about her debut novel The Interpreter's Daughter and the family photograph from 1935 that inspired her to write her book.
Teresa Lim is a Singaporean author who now resides in England. She lives with her husband in south London and Devon and have two grown-up sons. The Interpreter's Daughter is her first book.
The Interpreter's Daughter is a poetic multi-generational debut memoir which took Teresa 10 years to research. She also received funding from the National Heritage Board in Singapore to assist in her writing. Teresa’s family story transports readers from the Opium Wars to the end of the Second World War, through south China, Singapore, Shanghai, Borneo, Hong Kong and London. At its heart lies a hidden family tragedy. The Interpreter's Daughter was published by Michael Joseph on 23rd June and you can find it on our catalogue.
As an only child whose father died when I was nine, it was undoubtedly my mother. I grew up in Singapore and my parents were Chinese. My father was very traditional, not very involved in my upbringing. My mother was more ‘modern’ and very demonstrative and loving. We could talk about most things. She was kind to everyone and had few prejudices against people. She was very forgiving. These are qualities I try to emulate, not always successfully!
I learnt through writing this book that there was another major, but unseen, influence on my childhood. It was my great-aunt Fanny, my mother’s maternal aunt. She had my mother educated in English (and therefore I was taught in English too) and encouraged her to be ambitious. My mother’s training allowed her a successful career in the civil service which made all the difference when I was growing up -- my father had died unexpectedly, leaving us unprovided for. It was my mother’s independently earned income that allowed me to carry on with my schooling and to go to university.
It’s changed quite a bit. That photograph started me on research that’s given me a greater sense of where I come from and therefore who I am. It’s been very grounding knowing more about people with whom I share my genes. It’s also been eye-opening to learn the history of their time. It’s given me an awareness of our history as it is being made now. Their world is so relevant to ours. Some things haven’t changed all that much.
At its heart there is a strong, even wilful, young woman – my great-aunt Fanny -- who decided she wouldn’t marry and took a vow of spinsterhood to seal that intention. Her models were the feminists of 19th century south China who’d rather marry ghosts than real men. She got herself an English education and went on to university when that was rare for women in British Malaya.
But this is also a story about the political and social circumstances of the time and how our personal lives cannot help but entwine with what shapes world history. So Fanny’s story is also the story of World War in the Pacific – why it happened, what happened to the ordinary people of Singapore after it fell to Japan, after the British were sent to prison camps.
Elated… and nervous. Apparently all first-time writers feel a little anxious letting go of something that they’ve lived with for so long, not knowing where it will go and where it might lead them.
I think it’s the nearly love-affair between Fanny and the young man that I’ve named ‘Chen’. He did exist. There was definitely someone she met while she was at the University of Hong Kong for whom she had feelings, I think deep feelings. They possibly made her regret her vow of spinsterhood. But what actually went on? I’d love to know.
The next book that I want to write combines my early childhood in post-colonial Singapore - where I grew up among marginal, Dickensian characters - with my father’s family. I know very little about them, but they were also interesting. They came from a village in China called ‘Forever Spring’, renowned for its highly decorated black and gold lacquer baskets. My father emigrated to Singapore in 1949, the year that China became Communist.
Growing up in Singapore in the 50s and early 60s, I wasn’t exposed to much Western classical music apart from what I practised for graded examinations on the piano. We didn’t own a record player, but I did do a music O-level. One drowsy afternoon, our teacher brought in his own record player and put on Bach’s Suite no 3 in D major. When the ‘Air’ played, I felt as if I’d been hit by a thunderbolt. I’d never, ever heard music like that before. It was celestial.
No-one’s response is the same of course but I wish everyone an experience like mine, whether with pop, rock, folk, or classical, from whichever part of the world. I imagine Debussy felt that 'wham' moment the first time that he heard the gamelan.
I belong to a wonderfully eclectic book club that takes up most of my reading time as I’m an extremely slow reader. We’re with Wilkie Collins at the moment, with The Moonstone -- a terrific but not a quick read!
My 'to read' pile includes Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, Cynthia Saltzman’s Napoleon’s Plunder and the Theft of Veronese’s Feast which a friend gave me and looks fascinating, and Edward Chisholm’s A Waiter in Paris.
I also long to re-read my favourite books growing up in Singapore – Elizabeth Goudge’s Linnets and Valerians and E.M. Forster’s The Longest Journey. I loved them though I had never visited England. What would I think of the manners and the English countryside now? I didn’t know what a valerian looked like. Now I see them everywhere. They grow wild around us in Devon where we spend our summers.
You get so caught up in the text when writing a book, checking and re-checking facts, syntax, grammar, expression. I wish I’d spent more time on the photographs, actually commissioning proper pictures of the houses where my family had lived.
