She was born in the town of Kulim in Malaysia, and studied in the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Malaya in 1963. She immigrated to Singapore in 1967 at the age of 26, where she continued to work and furthered her post-graduate education in University of Singapore. In 1988, she received her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the National University of Singapore, and attended Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990 as a Fulbright Scholar. She had also worked as a teacher, and later, as project director with the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore and a specialist lecturer with the Regional English Language Centre, teaching Socio-Linguistics and Literature. In 1992, she left her professional career to become a full-time writer. Since then, Lim was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2003 and as an ambassador of the Hans Christian Andersen Foundation in Copenhagen in 2005. She was also honored with an Honorary Doctorate in Literature from Murdoch University and Southeast Asia Write Award.

Lim published her first short story collection called Stories of Singapore (1978), which showed the wit with which Lim is able to portray Singaporean society. A succeeding collection, Or Else, the Lightning God and other Stories, was published in 1980. Another story collection that followed in this tradition was O Singapore: Stories in Celebration from 1988. Her first novel was published in 1982 and it was entitled The Serpent's Tooth. Other popular books that have been published since then were The Bondmaid (1995) and Following the Wrong God Home (2001). Her major theme in her stories is the role of women in traditional Chinese society and culture. In 1998 Lim was awarded the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award and in 1999 she received the S.E.A. Write Award.

In 2000, she worked with the now-defunct web portal Lycos Asia to pen an e-novella. The effort was called Leap of Love and was sold online (at 19 cents a chapter) before it was published by Horizon Books in 2003. It was released as the film The Leap Years by Singapore's Raintree Pictures in 2008. It is directed by Jean Yeo and stars Wong Li-Lin and Ananda Everingham.

Her best-selling novel, The Bondmaid (which sold 75,000 copies) was initially said to be produced as a film by Hong Kong director, Stanley Kwan, of 'Lan Yu' fame, starring Fann Wong. Confirmation of the production eventually waned off.

Dr Lim first crossed swords with the PAP in 1994 when she wrote a landmark article published in The Straits Times — PAP and the People: A Great Affective Divide, which peeved then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong so much that his press secretary challenged her to enter politics and take responsibility for her views. Goh said at a PAP event that Lim had “gone beyond the pale” to imply that he was not really in charge in the article. “When my authority is being commented on or undermined by wrong observations, I have to correct them, or the view will prevail that I am indeed not in charge of Singapore..If left unchecked, snide comments would, over time, erode the people’s respect for the office,” he said.

Lee Kuan Yew dismissed Catherine Lim’s views as “the popular theory that the Western press writes about.” In his memoirs, Lee is quoted as saying:

“Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister.She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul-de-sac.There is no other way you can govern in a Chinese society.”

Catherine Lim did not join politics. Her column was subsequently stopped by the Straits Times and she remained on the fringes of Singapore socio-political life.

Novels:

• The Serpent's Tooth, Times Books International, Singapore, 1982
• The Bondmaid, self-published, 1995 (Orion 1997; foreign edns 1997, 1998)
• The Teardrop Story Woman, Orion, London, 1998
• Following the Wrong God Home, Allen & Unwin, London, 2001
• Leap of Love, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2003 (a novella)
• The Song of Silver Frond, Orion, London, 2003

Short Story Collections:

• Stories of Singapore, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1978
• Or Else, the Lightning God and Other Stories, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1980
• They Do Return...But Gently Lead Them Back, Times Books International, Singapore, 1983
• The Shadow of a Shadow of a Dream: Love Stories of Singapore, Times Books International, Singapore, 1987
• O Singapore! Stories in Celebration, Times Books International, Singapore, 1988
• Deadline for Love and Other Stories, Heinemann Asia, 1992
• Meet Me on the Queen Elizabeth 2!, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1993
• The Best of Catherine Lim, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1993
• The Woman's Book of Superlatives, Times Books International, 1993
• The Howling Silence: tales of the dead and their return, Horizon Books, Singapore 1999

Poetry

• Love's Lonely Impulses, Heinemann Asia, Singapore, 1992
• Humoresque, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2006

Non-fiction

• Unhurried Thoughts At My Funeral, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2005