“The Interpreter’s Daughter” by Teresa Lim

In her new family memoir “The Interpreter’s Daughter,” Teresa Lim’s illustrates how the past is never really past.

We're continuing our nonfiction kick here at the The Lakshmi and Asha Show with a moving new family memoir that traces how war, poverty, and colonialism can deeply shape generations in ways large and small.

The Singapore-born author Teresa Lim first began thinking about her family history as she tended to her mother during the last months of her life in the early 1990s. Like many longtime Singaporeans of all ethnicities, the elder Lim did not know much about her family's experiences before they got to Singapore, but she did have a treasured family photograph that dated back to 1935 in Hong Kong.