Short bio
Wan Phing Lim was born to Malaysian parents in 1986 in Butterworth, Penang. She lives in Penang and is the fiction editor of NutMag zine. She has two short story collections, ‘Two Figures in a Car’ (2021) and ‘Adorable’ (2025) published by Penguin Random House Southeast Asia.
Long bio
Wan Phing Lim was born to Malaysian parents in 1986 in Butterworth, Penang. She lives in Penang and is the fiction editor of NutMag zine. She has two short story collections, ‘Two Figures in a Car’ (2021) and ‘Adorable’ (2025) published by Penguin Random House Southeast Asia.
Wan Phing works as a freelance writer. She started writing fiction in 2012, and since then, her stories and essays have appeared in Catapult, Ricepaper Magazine, This is Southeast Asia, Sine Theta Magazine, Portside Review, Kyoto Journal and more. Outside of writing she loves coffee, nature and art.
Name pronunciation
Wan Phing (one ping), surname Lim
Social media links
http://facebook.com/wanphingwriter
https://www.goodreads.com/wanphinglim
Photos
Photo credit: Sumay Cheah
Photo credit: Sumay Cheah
Photo credit: Sumay Cheah
Photo credit: Naraphat Sakarthornsap
Adorable (2025) cover
Cover art: Rachel Chew, cover design: Divya Gaur
Adorable official summary
A young boy befriends a girl from a haunted house known as ‘Adorable’. A roast pig at a Taoist funeral becomes a symbol of rebellion. A man adopts a Thai doll, hoping it would change his luck.
Meanwhile, a family of monsters live on Mount Pleasure, disguising themselves with anagrams, and a black metal scandal ruins a teenage couple’s after-school hangout at Gurney Plaza.
Set in Penang, Malaysia, these short stories describe how the island makes its people do crazy things. Its characters navigate a world of social tension and moral panic, while trying to find peace for themselves.
ISBN: 9789815280920
Pre-order links are now live:
🇸🇬 SG release date 13 May 2025
https://www.amazon.sg/Adorable-Wan-Phing-Lim/dp/9815280929/ref=sr_1_1
🇺🇲 US release date 15 May 2025
https://www.amazon.com/Adorable-Wan-Phing-Lim/dp/9815280929/ref=sr_1_1
🇦🇺 AU release date 29 July 2025
https://www.amazon.com.au/Adorable/dp/9815280929/ref=sr_1_1
Amazon | Kinokuniya SG | Penguin | Goodreads
Two Figures in a Car and Other Stories (2021) cover
Cover art and design: Rujuta Thakurdesai
Two Figures official summary
Two figures sit in a car, waiting to commit a crime. A young girl steals her grandmother’s jade bracelet. A Malay man collects the blonde hair of a British teenager he is transfixed with, and a young woman feeds human blood to a frangipani tree.
There’s right and wrong in this world. Or is there? This collection of fourteen stories explores the grey and amoral lives of ordinary – and not so ordinary – Malaysians and Singaporeans looking to carve their place in the world.
Shifting between the dark hills of Penang island to the lonely coasts of Singapore and the cramped corners of Kuala Lumpur and Manchester, Two Figures in a Car is coloured with petty crimes, small ambitions and fantastical delusions.
ISBN: 9789814954143
Amazon | MPH Online | Penguin | Goodreads
Wan Phing Lim 