ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jemimah Wei is the author of the highly anticipated THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, New York Times Editors’ Pick, and Indie Next pick. It debuted at #1 on the Straits Times Bestseller list, is longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award, and has been named a best book of Spring 2025 by TIME, Foreign Policy, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, Apple Books, and more. Published by Doubleday (US) and Weidenfeld&Nicolson (UK), it has been translated to Italian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, and Dutch.

She is a 2025 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honouree, a 2022-4 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a 2020 Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University, and a Francine Ringold Award for New Writers honouree. Her fiction has won the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize and been published in Narrative, Guernica, and Joyland, amongst others. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recognized by the Best of the Net anthologies, and received scholarships from Singapore’s National Arts Council, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Sewanee Writers Conference, and Columbia University, where she earned her MFA. She is currently a Senior Prose Editor at The Massachusetts Review.

After a three-year career in advertising as a copywriter, and eight years as an onscreen presenter and host, Jemimah shifted much of her focus to literary projects in 2017.

In 2017, she launched the unprecedented #JemmaRecommends reading project with Times Books and WH Smith, promoting a range of curated titles in-store that focused on identity and migration, and in 2018, Jemimah established a scholarship with GrabAcademy supporting one student interested in pursuing a tertiary education in the arts and humanities. That same year, she became the ambassador for the Words on Wheels non-profit volunteer cooperation.

In 2020, she was one of Google’s How She Does It speakers — an event that features distinguished women sharing their life stories to inspire, interact and connect with people across industries, countries, and age groups. In 2022, she was one of Twitter’s featured personalities for their #SheInspiresMe International Women’s Day campaign, which highlights inspirational women across Southeast Asia who have been breaking the bias and stereotypes that exist around women.

Jemimah presently splits her time between Singapore and the United States. She loves to talk, and takes long, excellent naps. Say hi at @jemmawei on socials.

Short Bio:

Jemimah Wei was born and raised in Singapore and splits her time between Singapore and the United States. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, winner of the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize, and formerly held the Wallace Stegner Fellowship and Felipe P. De Alba Fellowship at Stanford University and Columbia University respectively. Her highly anticipated debut novel, The Original Daughter, debuted at #1 on The Straits Times bestseller list, is a Good Morning America Book Club pick, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. The Original Daughter is longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, the Chommanard International Women’s Literary Award, and was named a Best Book of Spring by TIME, Foreign Policy, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, and more.