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The Original Daughter

'A book not to miss' New York Times

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The Original Daughter

By: Jemimah Wei
Narrated by: Eunice Wong
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About this listen

 'Precise, layered and moving, The Original Daughter is a book not to miss' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
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©2025 Jemimah Wei Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Parenting & Families Women's Fiction Heartfelt

Critic reviews

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 (KAVEH AKBAR, bestselling author of the National Book Award nominee Martyr!)
Utterly engrossing . . . elegantly composed . . . I loved this almost claustrophobic novel about the ways unrealized ambition can turn everything someone holds dear to rot (ROXANE GAY, New York Times bestselling author of The Bad Feminist)
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 (PAUL BEATTY, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout)
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 (TASH AW, Booker Prize-nominated author of The Harmony Silk Factory)
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 (JONATHAN ESCOFFERY, bestselling author of the National Book Award nominee If I Survive You)
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 (SHARLENE TEO, author of Ponti)
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