The Original Daughter
- Author Jemimah Wei
- Narrator Eunice Wong
- Publisher Orion
- Publish Date 6 May 2025
- Run Time 13 hours and 31 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Family life fiction, Fiction: general and literary.
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What to expect
'Precise, layered and moving, The Original Daughter is a book not to miss' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'I cannot put this damn book down' ROXANE GAY
'Wise and wonderful' PAUL BEATTY
'Thrilling . . . so much the real deal' KAVEH AKBAR
'Seismic' JONATHAN ESCOFFERY
Singapore, 1996. Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, she is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead.
At once collaborators and sisters, Gen and Arin grow up inseparable, navigating the intensity of life in working-class Singapore - where urgent insistence on achievement demands self-immolation in the realms of imagination, work, and play. But as the rapidly modernising, winner-takes-all world threatens to leave one behind as the other's star rises exponentially, the sisters must weigh their allegiances and bonds, the cost of success and ultimately reckon with who they've become. What results is a story that cracks open the fault lines of Singaporean society, our desperate need for acceptance and our yearning to be loved.
Vivid and visceral, The Original Daughter is a breathtaking act of empathy by a new literary star.
'A tour de force that I'll never forget' QIAN JULIE WANG
'I read in a fever' EMILY ITAMI
'Heartfelt and meticulously written' SHARLENE TEO
'A true literary talent' TASH AW
WHO WOULD YOU SACRIFICE AT THE ALTAR OF AMBITION? A dazzling story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore by National Book Award '5 Under 35' honouree Jemimah Wei?
'I cannot put this damn book down' ROXANE GAY
'Wise and wonderful' PAUL BEATTY
'Thrilling . . . so much the real deal' KAVEH AKBAR
'Seismic' JONATHAN ESCOFFERY
Singapore, 1996. Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, she is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead.
At once collaborators and sisters, Gen and Arin grow up inseparable, navigating the intensity of life in working-class Singapore - where urgent insistence on achievement demands self-immolation in the realms of imagination, work, and play. But as the rapidly modernising, winner-takes-all world threatens to leave one behind as the other's star rises exponentially, the sisters must weigh their allegiances and bonds, the cost of success and ultimately reckon with who they've become. What results is a story that cracks open the fault lines of Singaporean society, our desperate need for acceptance and our yearning to be loved.
Vivid and visceral, The Original Daughter is a breathtaking act of empathy by a new literary star.
'A tour de force that I'll never forget' QIAN JULIE WANG
'I read in a fever' EMILY ITAMI
'Heartfelt and meticulously written' SHARLENE TEO
'A true literary talent' TASH AW
Critics Review
The Original Daughter goes for all the big stuff: ambition, time, family, forgiveness, constructing the self. Thrilling, to find a new author with an appetite for the whole spectrum of living, and the skill to get it down true . . . Wei's prose is delicious, propulsively hurdling us through the lives of Gen and Arin, who will live in my marrow forever. The Original Daughter is so much the real deal
Utterly engrossing . . . elegantly composed . . . I loved this almost claustrophobic novel about the ways unrealized ambition can turn everything someone holds dear to rot
Fiery, funny, and incisive, The Original Daughter is at its core a ghost story. Once, invisibility was the hallmark of the working class, but Jemimah Wei knows in today's world, where an internet connection allows one to walk through walls, be seen, disappear, and haunt from beyond the analog grave, a soulless transparency is power. A societal privilege ironically afforded to most everyone. This novel adroitly, yet playfully, turns the ways we see cultural appropriation, nepotism, and identity upside down. What a wise and wonderful read
Full of empathy and energy, The Original Daughter is a portrait of individuals striving to define themselves in a country, and era, of intense change - the debut of a true literary talent
I laughed, I wept, I called my mom. This story of a family and its struggle for freedom, intimacy, and survival asks not just what it means to love, but to love well, especially in a world where our relationships can both bond and break us. Jemimah Wei chronicles the eviscerating experience of living under the fracture of modern society with devastating care. Seismic
Precise, layered and moving, The Original Daughter is a book not to miss
A heartfelt and meticulously written paean to sisterhood, the complexities of family and growing up in Singapore. Jemimah Wei is a sparkling talent
I've rarely read such believable and compelling characters - I was captivated by them from the first page, and read in a fever, rooting for them even when they were messing up and hoping they would be able to keep finding their ways back to each other. The pressure and astronomically high stakes of Genevieve's academic journey; the ambition and love and misguided efforts of their mother; the ties and knots of the sisters' relationship - everything was so tenderly painted with such attention to the best kind of minutiae - much as I sometimes found it heartbreaking, I loved diving back into the rich, textured, sensory world of the book
From the very first page, The Original Daughter consumed me. I soared when Gen's and Arin's dreams came alive; I crashed when heartache wrenched them. With rare wisdom, Jemimah Wei examines our need to belong and be loved when we chase ambition above all else. Her writing is so incisive and visceral that I did not simply read The Original Daughter; I lived it. This astonishing debut is a tour de force that I'll never forget
The Original Daughter is a beautifully crafted exploration of family, identity and the complexities of cultural expectations. Through rich, evocative prose, Wei delves into the heart of a traditional Chinese-Singaporean family, capturing the tensions and deep emotional bonds that define their lives. Genevieve's journey is marked by introspection and unforgettable moments of self-discovery, making this novel both compelling and one that will live on. The Original Daughter is a testament to Wei's storytelling prowess, a poignant reflection on the enduring ties of family, and the strongest introduction to Jemimah Wei, a talented, indelible writer with much to offer to a world that is in desperate need of saving
Wei treats Gen and Arin's complex bond with humor and pathos. A remarkably nuanced exploration of sisterhood and its limits
Glorious . . . Revelatory . . . A tragic, haunting exercise in the limitations of not-quite unconditional love . . . Wei poignantly, affectingly observes an extended family that sunders from dysfunction and betrayals
A gripping tale of two sisters long separated by acts of cruelty and the inability to forgive . . . Illuminates both the need for, and cost of, estrangement
A breathtaking triumph and a complicated ode to working-class Singapore
[A] decades-spanning saga about ambition, resentment, and forgiveness
A piercing exploration of chosen families, female ambition and the psychological pressures of growing up in a hyper-competitive city-state
A story about girlhood, ambition and the competitive pressures of Singapore's education system, told with clarity, precision and an emotional undercurrent that lingers long after the final page
Propelled by the suffocating intensity of sisterhood . . . Full of lush, descriptive prose . . . An assured debut, the kind of novel you want to luxuriate in
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