The Interpreter's Daughter: A Family Memoir

by Teresa Lim

Overview

A beautiful, sweeping, multigenerational narrative that spans from nineteenth century south China to modern day Singapore.

I would learn that when families tell stories, what they leave out re-defines what they keep in. With my family, these were not secrets intentionally withheld. Just truths too painful to confront.

In the last years of her life, Teresa Lim's mother, Violet Chang, had copies of a cherished family photograph made for those in the portrait who were still alive. The photo is mounted on cream card with the name of the studio stamped at the bottom in Chinese characters.

The place and date on the back: Hong Kong, 1935.

Teresa would often look at this photograph, enticed by the fierceness and beauty of her great-aunt Fanny looking back at her. But Fanny never seemed to feature in the family stories that were always being told and retold. Why? she wondered.

This photograph set Teresa on a journey to uncover her family's remarkable history. Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers, she was guided to the fascinating, ordinary, yet extraordinary life of her great-aunt and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of nineteenth century south China. But to recover her great-aunt's past, we first must get to know Fanny's family, the times and circumstances in which they lived, and the momentous yet forgotten conflicts that would lead to war in Singapore and, ultimately, a long-buried family tragedy.

The Interpreter's Daughter is a beautifully moving record of an extraordinary family history. For fans of Wild Swans, The Hare With Amber Eyes, and Falling Leaves, The Interpreter's Daughter is a classic in the making.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639362691
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	356
Sales rank:	65,900
File size:	28 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Teresa Lim grew up in Singapore but has lived in London since 1992. She read Economics and Sociology with Anthropology at the University of Singapore before working as a business journalist and in finance for many years. After moving to the UK she wrote a fortnightly column on life in London for The Straits Times, Singapore. Teresa lives in south London and Devon with her husband. They have two grown-up sons. The Interpreter's Daughter is her first book.

Editorial Reviews

06/20/2022

Journalist Lim debuts with a captivating family history focused on her great-aunt, Fanny Law. Lim begins by detailing her feelings of displacement after leaving Singapore for Britain in 1992, which led her to research the life of her great-grandfather Law Quan-Yee, who was displaced by famine from his native Canton to the British colony of Singapore in the 1890s, where he became a clerk and interpreter for the Chinese Protectorate. The focus then shifts to Lim’s grandmother, Mong-Han, and her sister Mong-Fan, who Anglicized her name as Fanny Law. Caught in a collision between Chinese tradition and Western modernity, Fanny took a vow of celibacy and devoted her life to education and to caring for her family. As a teacher, she supported Mong-Han and her children through the Great Depression and Law Quan-Yee’s death. In gratitude, Mong-Han expected her daughter Violet, Lim’s mother, to become a “sworn spinster” like her aunt, but Fanny’s tragic death during the Japanese occupation of Singapore set Violet on a different path. Lim vividly recreates Singapore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and lucidly explains historical matters (the 1927 Shanghai massacre) and cultural traditions (spirit tablets). Fans of Lisa See’s On Gold Mountain ought to take a look. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"The Interpreter's Daughter is a captivating, multigenerational memoir. There is much to think about in this compelling story of history, family loyalty, and personal sacrifice, set in a pivotal time in the history of Southeast Asia. Teresa Lim’s quest to uncover a hidden chapter in her family’s history makes for a fascinating and richly textured, multigenerational tale. The Interpreter's Daughter is a reminder that all history is personal."

Charmaine Wilkerson

"Teresa Lim never knew her great aunt Fanny, whose face she’d seen in a photo but whose story was never told. Lim made it her mission to investigate Fanny and in so doing, has written this powerful story of family, feminists, tragedy and truth."

Ms. Magazine

"The Interpreter’s Daughter is a rich history of both Singapore and the Law family, her mother’s lineage tracing its first known ancestors back to central China...It’s apparent that Lim has spent a great deal of time researching her family’s history, and she writes about it seamlessly, as if telling the story to a friend."

Asian Review of Books

"Teresa Lim’s memoir The Interpreter’s Daughter reveals hidden family secrets amid accounts of love, loss, migration,
and memory. Based on extensive genealogical and historical research, The Interpreter’s Daughter weaves historical notes from China, Singapore, and the British Empire together with stories from Lim’s family. The Interpreter’s Daughter is an expansive memoir about family, migration, and the delicate nature of remembrance."

Forward Reviews

"In this ambitious memoir, journalist Lim interrogates her family’s history, decoding the truth and reckoning with an overlooked past. Spanning from late-nineteenth-century South China to present-day London, Lim's account covers indentured servitude under British colonialism, opium addiction and the Great Depression, and war between Japan and China. Lim pays close attention to her greatgrandfather and to her great-aunt, who lived in an era when women were denied an education and were either married, mistresses, or sex workers. She also considers the role suicide played in her family and the culture at-large. Enriched with family photographs, this family portrait will engage readers who enjoy such complex histories, such as Ancestor Trouble. (2022)"

Booklist

"In this ambitious memoir, journalist Lim interrogates her family’s history, decoding the truth and reckoning with an overlooked past. Spanning from late-nineteenth-century South China to present-day London, Lim's account covers indentured servitude under British colonialism, opium addiction and the Great Depression, and war between Japan and China. Lim pays close attention to her greatgrandfather and to her great-aunt, who lived in an era when women were denied an education and were either married, mistresses, or sex workers. She also considers the role suicide played in her family and the culture at-large. Enriched with family photographs, this family portrait will engage readers who enjoy such complex histories, such as Ancestor Trouble. (2022)"

Booklist

Advance praise for The Interpreter's Daughter:

From the Publisher

2022-06-29
A British-based Singaporean journalist probes family silences surrounding her beautiful and mysterious great-aunt.

Lim began researching her Chinese great-grandfather soon after she arrived in England in 1992 with her British husband. Over time, the one family member who came to intrigue her most was her great-grandfather’s youngest daughter, Fanny, who chose not to marry and “built a bridge between the orthodox and the modern for the later generations of women in her family.” A single family photograph dated from 1935 marked the beginning of Lim’s journey into her family’s past. She combed the archives of the School of Oriental and Asian Studies and the British Library for clues about the great-grandfather who had left a crisis-ridden, unstable China to work as an interpreter for British colonial administrators in Singapore. Piecing together family stories, Lim describes how her liberal-minded great-grandfather allowed Fanny—who rejected all Chinese anti-feminist traditions—to take a public oath of celibacy.” Her "sworn spinster" status allowed her the freedom to learn English, study at Hong Kong University, and pursue a career as a schoolteacher. It also gave her the means to support her elder sister when she left her husband for taking a concubine. Still, Chinese tradition still held power over Fanny. When the Japanese army marched into Singapore in 1942, she killed herself in what her family believed was an act of self-protection from the dishonor of rape. Yet Lim believed Fanny’s suicide could not be so simply explained. The Japanese arrested and executed thousands of Chinese men during their brief reign of terror, among them Fanny’s brother. Her death was meant as a symbolic expression of anguish for a family member she loved. Rich in the little-discussed history of Singaporean Chinese, this multigenerational memoir offers a timeless tale of the quest for identity, wholeness, and truth.

An eloquently enlightening family history.

Kirkus Reviews