Interview with Danielle Lim

We can’t ever be living in the minds of our favorite writers, but we try as much as we can to get closer. Earlier last week we stole Danielle Lim, the author of The Sound of Sch, from her busy schedule in an attempt to do just so.

What is your favorite book?

… How do I choose a favorite book? Can I say by author rather than book? Can? Okay. I like Sebastian Barry, because his prose is just beautiful.

What are some of your strange writing habits?

Is getting up at 5 AM strange? The thoughts tend to come early in the morning, so, somehow I would wake up and there’ll be a lot of things in my mind. I can’t sleep, so I might as well get up to write. There’s something very special about that 5 to 7 AM, where everyone is asleep. You know that there’s this silence and yet the dawn is coming? I don’t do that all the time, only when I’m writing.

What word would you use to describe The Sound of Sch?

One word? How I would like to see it is: Beauty. Not in terms of myself, but the life of my uncle and mother.

If you could pick one literary character whom you think is the most like you, who would it be and why?

Maybe… if I go back to the past, when I was doing literature at A Levels I was very touched by the books of Thomas Hardy. I was studying The Mayor of Casterbridge. I remember that it had a very deep impact on me. The mayor… he had very deep emotions. In that aspect, that’s someone that left a mark on me.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Hemingway. I think his writing is superb… about very, very difficult things in a way that people can relate to and understand. It’s not difficult language, but they’re very powerful insights into human emotions and behavior.
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The Sound of Sch is available for purchase at BooksActually, Booktique, Books Kinokuniya, MPH, and here