The Witch Doctor's Daughter by Kathrina Mohd Daud (PART OF EPIGRAM BOOKS FICTION PRIZE SERIES)

Safiyya loves her charlatan parents, but after years of watching the heartbroken and grieving come to them for fake and futile spiritual aid, she has had enough. 

So she leaves the Water Village to stay with her mother's people at the longhouse in the jungle, where she learns traditional medicine, meets an enigmatic linguist and finds herself caring for an orphaned newborn. 

Along the way, Safiyya must discover what she truly wants from life.

Reviews

“A deeply moving tale of female self-discovery, and also a Brunei that I never knew existed—a society in the 90s shaped by relative poverty, animist tradition, religious flexibility, the wilderness of the jungles, the freedom of the waters and, above all, the strange and not-completely-untraumatic process of blossoming into a modern, developed nation.”

–Ng Yi-Sheng, multi-award-winning author of Lion City

“I couldn’t put down Kathrina Mohd Daud’s beautiful, exuberant coming-of-age tale. Safiyya is a heroine for all of us: unruly, brilliant and absorbing as she grapples with indigenous beliefs and modern knowledge, going between the jungle and the Water Village. I was riveted.”

–Sunisa Manning, author of A Good True Thai