Williams, Emma

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Williams, Emma

PERSONAL:

Married.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir, Bloomsbury (London, UK), 2006.

Contributor of essays and articles to periodicals, including the Spectator.

SIDELIGHTS:

Emma Williams has written for the Spectator and contributed articles and essays to numerous periodicals offering information detailing the state of affairs between Palestine and Israel. Williams has resided in Israel as well as Pakistan, Turkey, South Africa, and the United States, where her duties varied from serving as a correspondent to working as a doctor. In 2000, Williams relocated to Jerusalem, Israel, with her family; subsequently, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict heightened dramatically, causing Williams and other residents to take daily safety precautions such as staying away from large, crowded areas. At times, Williams was separated from her husband as he traveled on business for the United Nations to conflict areas like the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These events led Williams to write her 2006 book, It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir, in which she chronicles her experiences living in the Middle East.

It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street narrates the daily struggles inherent in living in a country at war with one of its neighboring sovereign states. Theo Richmond, in a review for the Spectator, claimed that Williams "succeeds like few others in her ability to view the situation through the eyes of Jew and Arab, writing affectionately about each, showing an understanding of the historical legacies, sufferings, claims, prejudices, and mythologies that have left both sides trapped in a tragic cycle of hate and violence." Williams employs an equitable treatment of both Jewish and Arab concerns, and she is, according to Richmond, "undisturbed by the layers of complication" implicit in the situation. Richmond also mentioned that Williams's "eye for detail conveys the situation more painfully than statistics," and her first-person reportage of the violence and struggle for occupation has rendered "a human document" replete with emotion and clear prose. Lana Asfour, in an essay for the New Statesman, reported that "Williams's own voice seeks truth, moderation, and dialogue" in her descriptions of the Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian occupied communities and called text an "unusual mixture of memoir and journalism." Williams addresses the racial divides, losses of basic living comforts, and constant military activity existing within this region. Les Rosenblatt, writing in Arena, pointed out that the text includes "observations of daily life particularly as lived by Palestinians and Israelis in contact with each other." Moreover, Rosenblatt found that, although "Williams was fortunate in the circumstances that allowed her access to a wide range of Palestinians and Israelis," she nevertheless "brings a sense of scale and perspective that many a military journalist would envy."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Arena, August 1, 2007, Les Rosenblatt, "Quiet Account of Violent Times: A Jerusalem Memoir," review of It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir.

New Statesman, November 20, 2006, Lana Asfour, "Promised Land?," review of It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street, p. 67.

Spectator, Theo Richmond, July 22, 2006, "Deep Depression Unlikely to Lift," review of It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street.