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...
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Jay Prosser
Dec 29, 20223 min read
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...
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Jay Prosser
May 10, 20224 min read
Shema
Honorable Mention for the 2021 Curt Johnson Prose Award (Nonfiction). Excerpt. Please visit december for full essay. All rights reserved...
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Jay Prosser
Apr 18, 20216 min read
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...
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Jay Prosser
Oct 12, 20203 min read
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...
807 views4 comments
Jay Prosser
Oct 8, 20203 min read
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...
380 views8 comments
Jay Prosser
Sep 21, 20202 min read
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...
102 views1 comment
Jay Prosser
Sep 19, 20201 min read
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...
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Jay Prosser
Sep 19, 20201 min read
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,...
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