Interview: 2022 Barbara Jefferis Award shortlistee S.L. Lim

14.09.22

How did you start writing?

I saw there were books in the world and assumed that people wrote them and thought 'hmm... what if?' It really was that simple. I just waited until I had ideas which seemed large enough, and feelings tenacious enough, that it felt worthwhile to see the project through.

What inspired you to write Revenge: Murder in Three Parts?

My first novel, Real Differences (2019), was very cerebral. I wanted to write something which had less superego and more id, and to move from a strictly realistic style into a heightened, slightly shifted reality.

What was your writing process like for this book - what were the most challenging and enlightening aspects of writing it?

It was spasmodic but also rewarding. I wrote it in between doing stuff for my paid job (there's a joke about a coffee mug in there which is a reference to a former boss.) The most difficult bit was plot - the emotional beats of the story were clear to me, but the mechanics of moving the characters from A to B, less so. The most enlightening aspect was the catharsis of taking fictional revenge on my enemies (of which I have many).

In what ways do you think Yannie might be an empowering figure for women and young girls?

Yannie does not scale her desires to her circumstances. She is unafraid to want everything, no matter how remote the possibility of gratification.

How do you think literature helps to shape our understanding of ourselves and others?

I think it offers a terrain where you can take an idea out for a walk. Novels are also a really unique form in terms of evoking interiority, giving (or simulating) direct and intimate access to someone else's subjective experience.

What was the most recent book you've read about women or girls that moved you?

Blakwork by Alison Whittaker. It evokes a really profound sense of bodies, and land, and of bodies in relation to the land. And of Whittaker herself as an intellectual presence. Also Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright. I love popstars.

S. L. Lim is the author of two novels, Real Differences and Revenge. Real Differences won the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing in the NSW Premier Literary Awards 2020. Revenge was shortlisted for The Stella Prize and the Queensland Literary Awards in 2021. Revenge is also available in Wavesound audio narrated by Eryn Jean Norvill.

Illustration of S.L. Lim by Viet-My Bui.