Abraham Isaac, teacher of Latin, philosopher, and father, has, after many years, a young pupil. Teaching pulls him back into his memories: of Rose, his first love; Mercy, his stubborn sister; and most of all of Rani, his beloved wife. Now he is old, and the burden of his years weighs on him heavily. Distanced from a present devoid of idealism and obsessed with power and money, Abraham is estranged from his strong, successful son. Descending into the past, Abraham is led from the promise of youth, through cynicism born of experience, to an understanding and reconciliation of his life and times hard-won in maturity.

About the Marshall Cavendish Classics series

This title is being reissued under the new Marshall Cavendish Classics: Literary Fiction series, which seeks to introduce some of the best works of Singapore literature to a new generation of readers. Some have been evergreen titles over the years, others have been unjustly neglected. 

Authors in the series include: Catherine Lim, Claire Tham, Colin Cheong, Michael Chiang, Minfong Ho, Ovidia Yu and Philip Jeyaretnam.

Philip Jeyaretnam is a familiar face in Singapore’s literary scene whose works are celebrated for their “marvellous feel for words and clever eye for idiosyncratic detail”. His book First Loves (1987) topped the Sunday Times bestseller list for 18 months, while his next book Raffles Place Ragtime was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize. In 2015, Abraham’s Promise was selected by The Business Times as one of the Top 10 English Singapore books from 1965 to 2015.