{"id":67958,"date":"2026-07-11T22:12:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T14:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=67958"},"modified":"2026-07-11T22:12:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T14:12:03","slug":"i-never-felt-ready-elizabeth-lim-on-writing-her-chinese-grandmothers-story-and-soy-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=67958","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I never felt ready\u2019: Elizabeth Lim on writing her Chinese grandmother\u2019s story and soy milk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">New York-based author Elizabeth Lim grew up hearing her grandmother\u2019s stories about Hong Kong in World War II, Guangdong during the Sino-Japanese war and the sweeping immigrant journey that eventually brought their family to American shores. Those ancestral memories form the backbone of her latest novel, <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Fishbone Cinderella<\/em>, set to hit shelves on July 28.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Known widely for her young adult high fantasies such as <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Spin the Dawn<\/em> (2019) and <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Six Crimson Cranes<\/em> (2021), The New York Times bestselling author is now making a deliberate, maturity-driven pivot for her newest novel.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThis book is one that I\u2019ve been wanting to write for probably over a decade now,\u201d Lim says, reflecting on her literary journey. \u201cBut I never felt ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 type=\"h3\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"eh0yk8h0 css-17x7qa9 e1pqa4re1\">What is her latest book, <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Fishbone Cinderella<\/em>, about?<\/h3>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\"><em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Fishbone Cinderella<\/em> follows two timelines across 1940s Hong Kong and the other in 60s San Francisco, in the United States.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">When Japanese soldiers invade her hometown in southern China, Yut Ying escapes by her miraculous powers \u2013 turning invisible \u2013 and eventually flees to Hong Kong to work at a shoe factory despite harbouring dreams of becoming a singer.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Yut Ying\u2019s daughter, Marigold, later finds out about this power in San Francisco, opening up questions that had shrouded years of fractured love and family secrets.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-inline-container e1a5rv550 css-1llrc1m e1yqhwb40\" data-qa=\"Component-renderMap-StyledDiv\">\n<div class=\"image-inline caption e1fvabeq0 css-19sk4h4 ea9pn0s0\" data-qa=\"Component-Container\">\n<figure class=\"image-inline caption ea9pn0s1 css-m43lr3 e1gf69pb0\" data-qa=\"ArticleImage-ArticleImageContainer\">\n<div data-qa=\"ArticleImage-handleRenderImage-ImageContainer\" class=\"css-bjn8wh e1gf69pb3\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The cover of Elizabeth Lim\u2019s novel Fishbone Cinderella. Photo: courtesy of Penguin Random House\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/07\/09\/1c7a1f46-0d38-43a7-8220-249f39b4472a_abb9d3f5.jpg\" title=\"The cover of Elizabeth Lim\u2019s novel Fishbone Cinderella. Photo: courtesy of Penguin Random House\"\/><\/div><figcaption data-qa=\"ArticleImage-DescriptionContainer\" class=\"css-1bj5zno e1gf69pb1\">The cover of Elizabeth Lim\u2019s novel Fishbone Cinderella. Photo: courtesy of Penguin Random House<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cYour elders aren\u2019t going to be here forever \u2026 and I want to preserve that history that they went through,\u201d Lim says about her novel\u2019s source of inspiration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/chinese-culture\/article\/3359950\/i-never-felt-ready-elizabeth-lim-writing-her-chinese-grandmothers-story-and-soy-milk?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York-based author Elizabeth Lim grew up hearing her grandmother\u2019s stories about Hong Kong in World War II, Guangdong during the Sino-Japanese war and the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[107,183,906,21435,6412,5153,483,3111,1199,3190],"class_list":["post-67958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-chinese","tag-elizabeth","tag-felt","tag-grandmothers","tag-lim","tag-milk","tag-ready","tag-soy","tag-story","tag-writing","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}