Emma Brockes (born 1975) is a British author and a contributor to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. She lives in New York.

Biography

The daughter of a South-African-born mother,Emma Brockes
"My mother's secret past"
extract from ''She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me'' as published in ''The Guardian'', 16 March 2013. Brockes read English at St Edmund Hall,

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

, graduating in 1997 with a

first First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

."Emma Brockes"
St Edmund Hall, At Oxford, she was editor of the student newspaper '' Cherwell'' and won the Philip Geddes prize for journalism for her work. She worked briefly as feature writer on ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'', before joining ''

'' in 1997."Visiting Time - Context - The Author: Emma Brockes"
British Council She has been recognised by the

British Press Awards The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of United Kingdom, British journalism. History Established in 1962 by ''The Sunday People, The People'' and ''Campaign (magazine), World's Press ...

three times, winning the "Young Journalist of the Year" award in 2001 and the "Feature Writer of the Year" award in 2002. She was nominated as "Interviewer of the Year" in 2006. In 2005, an interview by Brockes in ''The Guardian'' was described by its subject

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

as a "scurrilous piece of journalism". ''The Guardian'' later withdrew the article from the website, acknowledging "Ms Brockes's misrepresentation of Prof Chomsky's views on

Srebrenica Srebrenica ( sr-cyrl, Сребреница, ) is a town and municipality located in the easternmost part of Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town, with its main industry being salt mining and a nearby ...

", and offering "an unreserved apology to Prof Chomsky" for Brockes's suggestion that Chomsky denied Srebrenica to be a massacre."Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian and Noam Chomsky"
''The Guardian'', 17 November 2005. An external ombudsman review determined that the "Readers' Editor was right to conclude that an apology and correction was deserved", though adding that "the removal of the original interview from the website was unnecessary and over responsive", a view that Chomsky himself shared. The text of the original can now be found on Chomsky's official website. Brockes's first book, ''What Would Barbra Do?'', was published in 2007. The ''New York Times Book Review'' responded: "Spirited, articulate and utterly devourable ... If I could offer rockesany advice, it would be ... to write as many books on as many subjects as she can, as fast as is reasonably possible." Another book ''She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me'' (London: Faber) appeared in 2013 and which featured as BBC Radio 4's ''

Book of the Week ''Book of the Week'' is a BBC Radio 4 series that is broadcast daily on week days. Each week, extracts from the selected book, usually a non-fiction work, are read over five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning (9:45a ...

''. She is now a freelance writer, but continues to write profiles of major public figures for ''The Guardian'', as well as contributing her own work to ''The New York Times'' and other publications.

References

External links

Emma Brockes profile
at ''The Guardian''
Emma Brockes website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brockes, Emma 1975 births Living people Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford English people of South African descent English biographers English journalists The Guardian journalists British republicans