A boy is given a girl’s name so that he can escape the attention of malignant ghouls. A devout Catholic priest is suspected of hanky-panky with a submissive Chinese wife when she gives birth to an albino child. A young girl student dies before her English examinations, but still manages to write an out-of-point essay for the Cambridge Syndicate. From societal superstitions and the imagination come these 15 tales of the paranormal.

About the Marshall Cavendish Classics series

This title is being reissued under the new Marshall Cavendish Classics: Literary Fiction series, which seeks to introduce some of the best works of Singapore literature to a new generation of readers. Some have been evergreen titles over the years, others have been unjustly neglected. 

Authors in the series include: Catherine Lim, Claire Tham, Colin Cheong, Michael Chiang, Minfong Ho, Ovidia Yu and Philip Jeyaretnam.

Doyenne of Singapore’s literary circles and one of the leading figures in the world of Asian fiction, Catherine Lim is a household name to many Singaporeans. She has written over 20 books across various genres – novels, short stories, poems and satirical pieces. Lim has won numerous awards for her work, including the National Book Development Council awards in 1982, 1988 and 1990; the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award in 1998; and the 1999 regional Southeast Asian Write Award.