A captivating debut novel set in working-class Singapore about the relationship between two sisters over two decades.

Singapore 1996
Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead.

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Gen and Arin grow up as sisters in Singapore: a place where insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice in the realms of imagination and play. As the sister’s struggle toward individual redemption, their story reveals 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.

My Review

About three quarters of the way through this brilliant book, I was going to give it 4 stars. As a character-led story, it was starting to get overlong, and Genevieve was really getting on my nerves. I needed the story to move forward, and quickly. I wanted to tell her that not everything in the world revolves around her. She seems to think that Arin’s behaviour is all about being more successful than her. That her mother Su prefers Arin (I did), that she is not the centre of the universe.

But in the last part it all changed. We return to where we started in 2015, when we discovered that Su is terminally ill. Gen and Arin are still estranged, but Su wants to see Arin before she dies. At this point I could not believe Gen’s behaviour. I was angry. I cried. I pleaded.

But let’s get back to 1996. When Arin arrives as a six-year-old, abandoned by her family and dumped on the Yangs, Gen is jealous (even though she wouldn’t admit it at that point and why should she – she’s only seven or eight herself). Eventually they become ‘sisters’ and best friends, even having a ‘contract’ sealed in blood. They would always be together. In actual fact, the contract just holds them both back. Until Arin starts to break away.

Gen’s academic success at school was initially based on her ability to memorise whole chunks of facts and regurgitate them on paper. But as she moves up to A levels, she discovers that it’s now about disseminating that information and analysing it (remember compare and contrast). I know this, because I was the same. When I started my OU degree I struggled in the beginning.

Unfortunately for Gen, she resents anyone who is now doing better than her. Though she has made it into a prestigious Junior College, she is struggling to keep up. Eventually, having failed her A levels (by her standards), she drops out. In Singaporean society in the 1990s, academic achievement is so competitive, and only good exam results and a top degree get you a career. Otherwise you end up working in a photocopy shop like her mother, or an ice cream parlour.

But even now, Gen doesn’t understand the trauma Arin must have gone through, being abandoned by her family. My dog has more empathy. I accept that Arin did some pretty nasty things, but Gen, it was about HER, not about you. One day I hope you understand.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

About the Author

Jemimah Wei was born and raised in Singapore and is currently a 2022-2024 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She is the recipient of fellowships, scholarships and awards from Columbia University, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Singapore’s National Arts Council, and more.

Her fiction has won the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has been published in Guernica, Narrative, and Nimrod, among other publications. She was recently named one of Narrative’s ’30 below 30′ writers, was recognized by the Best of the Net Anthologies, and is a Francine Ringold Award for New Writers honoree.

For close to a decade, prior to moving to the US, she worked as a host for various broadcast and digital channels and has written and produced short films and travel guides for brands such as Laneige, Airbnb, and Nikon.