Overview

'An incredible debut' ROXANE GAY 'Wise and wonderful' PAUL BEATTY Who would you sacrifice on the altar of ambition? 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.

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9781399625579

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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 -- QIAN JULIE WANG, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Country 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

Author Information

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 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.

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