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. In 1997, she received the American Book Award for her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces.

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. 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. Lim had her early education at Infant Jesus Convent under the then British colonial education system. She won a federal scholarship to the University of Malaya, where she earned a B.A. first class honors degree in English. In 1969, at the age of twenty-four, she entered graduate school at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts under a Fulbright scholarship, and received a PhD in English and American Literature in 1973.

Personal life

Shirley Geok-lin Lim is married to Charles Bazerman, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. She has one child, named Gershom.

Career

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. 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:

Books and articles