top of page
Writing
Blog
Search


Water Migrant
My grandmother had a lifelong association with water. She was also twice a refugee, or what would now be called an illegal immigrant. My...
Jay Prosser
Jan 27, 20246 min read
189 views
0 comments


The music of memory
Chanukah in the Maghain Aboth, Singapore I just spent Shabbat Chanukah – the Saturday over the Jewish Festival of Lights – in the...
Jay Prosser
Dec 29, 20223 min read
249 views
0 comments


Shema
Honorable Mention for the 2021 Curt Johnson Prose Award (Nonfiction). Excerpt. Please visit december for full essay. All rights reserved...
Jay Prosser
May 10, 20224 min read
338 views
0 comments


Not the Malayan brown bear: How my father won the Military Cross
The camphorwood chest is indubitably my mother’s archive. It is dominated by her objects, as our growing-up was overwhelmed by her family...
Jay Prosser
Apr 18, 20216 min read
556 views
0 comments


The last ship to escape Singapore
Last night’s episode of The Singapore Grip showed the luckier protagonists boarding the Felix Roussel, Bombay-bound, in a bid to escape...

Jay Prosser
Oct 12, 20203 min read
983 views
4 comments


My mother the model
Only when I opened the camphorwood chest and really started to delve into my mother's past did I discover that she had been a model in...

Jay Prosser
Oct 8, 20203 min read
393 views
8 comments


The Singapore Grip -- why the Worlds?
Why did last night’s episode of The Singapore Grip (Christopher Hampton, ITV) spend so long – as does the eponymous novel by JG Farrell...

Jay Prosser
Sep 21, 20202 min read
106 views
1 comment


The scent of camphor
Whenever the chest is opened, the scent of camphor pulls me into another world. This is the past of my grandfather: a spice-trading...

Jay Prosser
Sep 19, 20201 min read
59 views
0 comments


A treasure chest of loving strangers
For as long as I can remember, the camphorwood chest has been the family archive. Its contents are scattered across individuals, history,...

Jay Prosser
Sep 19, 20201 min read
355 views
0 comments
bottom of page