The Original Daughter
'A book not to miss' New York Times
Published on 6. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
354 pages
978-1-3996-2558-6 (ISBN)
Description
Seismic' JONATHAN ESCOFFERY
'A talented, indelible writer' MORGAN TALTY
Singapore, 1996. Genevieve Yang is an only child, living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, when her grandfather rises from the dead. Long disappeared, he had a secret second family in Malaysia, who now suddenly deposits Arin, an unwanted daughter, into their home.
Gen and Arin grow up as sisters, older and younger, entwined with each other as they navigate the intensity of life in a working-class family in Singapore: a place where insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice in the realms of imagination and play.
As childhood and adolescence layer new experiences onto their lives, Gen and Arin must reinvent themselves time and again. As the sisters struggle toward individual redemption, we see the fault lines of Singaporean society, human pride and longing: our desperate need for acceptance and security, our yearning to be loved.
Vivid and visceral, THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER is a breathtaking act of empathy by a new literary star.
'A talented, indelible writer' MORGAN TALTY
Singapore, 1996. Genevieve Yang is an only child, living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, when her grandfather rises from the dead. Long disappeared, he had a secret second family in Malaysia, who now suddenly deposits Arin, an unwanted daughter, into their home.
Gen and Arin grow up as sisters, older and younger, entwined with each other as they navigate the intensity of life in a working-class family in Singapore: a place where insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice in the realms of imagination and play.
As childhood and adolescence layer new experiences onto their lives, Gen and Arin must reinvent themselves time and again. As the sisters struggle toward individual redemption, we see the fault lines of Singaporean society, human pride and longing: our desperate need for acceptance and security, our yearning to be loved.
Vivid and visceral, THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER is a breathtaking act of empathy by a new literary star.
More details
Person
Jemimah Wei is the author of The Original Daughter. Born and raised in Singapore, she is now based between Singapore and the United States. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University, where she earned her MFA. A recipient of awards and fellowships from Singapore's National Arts Council, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and Writers in Paradise, she was named one of Narrative's '30 below 30' writers, a National Book Award's '5 under 35', and is a Francine Ringold Award for New Writers honouree. Her fiction has won the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize and appears in Guernica, Narrative and Nimrod amongst others. For close to a decade, Jemimah was a host for various broadcast and digital channels, and has written and produced short films and travel guides for Laneige, Airbnb, and Nikon. This is her first novel.