Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore is a collection of seventeen short stories by Singapore author Catherine Lim. It was first published in 1978 in Singapore by Heinemann[1] under the Writing in Asia Series and earned the writer many accolades. It is Lim's first published book of fiction. Little Ironies was later used as a set text for GCE 'N' Levels.[2]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/Little_Ironies.jpg)
In 2015, Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore was selected by The Business Times as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965–2015, alongside titles by Arthur Yap and Daren Shiau.[3] In the same year, The Straits Times' Akshita Nanda selected Little Ironies as one of 10 classic Singapore books. "Catherine Lim's early short, sharp fiction describes the results of such social engineering", she wrote, "a Singapore growing more cosmopolitan and Singaporeans losing touch with their roots. Little Ironies spotlights ordinary people at their best and worst, such as 'The Taximan's Story', in which a cab driver is happy to make money off sex workers while looking down on them."[4]
In 2018, the book was included in the syllabus for literature for both GCE 'O' Levels and 'A' Levels.[5]
Works about Little Ironies
edit- Tan, Kheng Choo; Thomson, Ruth J; Lim, Catherine (1986). Student's Guide to Little Ironies. Singapore: G Brash.[6]
References
edit- ^ Catalogue record for "Little Ironies". Worldcat. OCLC 5980690. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
- ^ Tan, Beng. "Singapore writers make the grade". NewspaperSG, from The Straits Times, 13 March 1986, p. 13. Singapore Press Holdings. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
- ^ Yusof, Helmi. "Tomes that show us how we live". The Business Times. Singapore Press Holdings. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ^ Nanda, Akshita. "10 Singapore stories to ponder". The Straits Times. Singapore Press Holdings. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
- ^ Auto, Hermes (2018-06-26). "MOE to pick more local literature: Singapore authors studied by students past and present | The Straits Times". www.straitstimes.com. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
- ^ Catalogue record for Student's Guide. Worldcat. OCLC 220471894. Retrieved 2 April 2013.