OMARA WILLIAMS: From Cuba To The Cosmos, Her Inspiring Journey From Nuclear Engineer To Science Fiction Mastery.

Published on 28 December 2024, by Marine Beaumont | Italy, Europe.

Omara Williams Although she has lived in the United Kingdom for three decades, Omara Williams was born in Santiago de Cuba during the height of the communist regime that is still imposed on the beautiful Caribbean island. It was a harsh environment to grow up in—marked by oppression, hardship, and paranoia. Constant lectures about the benefits of communism and the threat of a capitalist invasion from the North marked her school years. But Omara’s reaction was to escape from it all in any way she could.

She immersed herself in a parallel world where only fantasy and adventure would count, insatiably reading one book after another. She found solace in her innate curiosity and her zest to question everything. Omara, the daughter of a university professor, would then discover the three things that would become her abiding passions: science, literature, and music. When she was not at school, she spent most of her time listening to music and reading adventure novels or science books.

Soon enough, however, she turned to writing to let her imagination grow. Every day, she spent hours imagining characters and situations to sit down and write for hours later on. As a teenager, she had several notebooks full of short fantasy stories, culminating in a handwritten book. Then, she decided to learn the English language. 

At a time when everything from a capitalist society, including the English language, was seen as decadent and inappropriate, Omara became an Anglophile. Still, even though she was criticized for not joining any communist movement and almost getting expelled from school for not aligning with the strict ideology, Omara sailed through her school years with top marks. On entering university, she faced a difficult choice. She knew she wanted to do something related to maths, physics, or chemistry, so she decided to study for a Nuclear Engineering degree, which, at the time, was one of the top careers to pursue, as the government carefully selected the students. Again, her excellent school results helped secure her place.

After completing her degree, she progressed to postgraduate study in Nuclear Physics and Mathematical Modelling, helping create the sophisticated software to run the reactor in Cuba’s first nuclear power plant while working in collaboration with scientists from the Eastern bloc. Employed by her university, her goal was to remain in academia, where there would be more career progression opportunities. But then, as the Berlin Wall fell, the funding underpinning her work was halted. Losing her post, she was sent to work at the nuclear plant being built in the city of Cienfuegos.

This, however, was a severe blow to Omara’s plans. “There was no longer any chance for exciting new research while the construction of the nuclear power plant dragged on,” she recalls. “I decided to return to Santiago and reassess my future.” Little did she know that the following chain of events would change her life forever. One weekend, after trying for three hours to enter a secluded beach that the government reserved for tourists only, she and a friend started to walk by the side of the road on their way to the next beach. She saw a car approaching from the far bend and noticed its tourist number plate. To her surprise, the vehicle suddenly stopped, and as she looked through the passenger window, she asked the driver: “Do you speak English?”

Omara could not believe it when she heard that the driver and his two other friends were English and that they were in Cuba studying the wildlife. Her excitement was evident. Here, she had an opportunity to learn about England, the country from which her favourite music and scientific heroes came from. She had so many questions, and they spent the rest of the day finding out how much they had in common and enjoyed each other’s company. He had to return to England soon after, but they kept in touch by writing letters—letters that took four weeks to arrive and sometimes were opened by the government. In total, they wrote one hundred letters to each other as they realized their friendship was turning into love.

Later that same year, he returned to Cuba to marry Omara, neither of them knowing whether she would be allowed to leave a country that was more like a prison. But after six months of intense negotiations and despite the complicated bureaucracy, Omara was finally allowed to join her husband in the United Kingdom. Four years later, their daughter was born.

After obtaining several Information Systems diplomas at Leeds University with Distinction, she soon found employment, eventually becoming one of the UK’s most sought-after software engineering managers, working for Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, PerkinElmer, and Linx Printing Technologies. Throughout her busy technical career, Omara never stopped believing that one day she would write a book about science and love, two subjects close to her heart. As the years went by, this intense desire turned into a mission.

She understood that she needed discipline, courage, and, most of all, determination. She wrote the list of advantages and disadvantages of writing a book on a piece of paper and stuck it to the wall of her office as she worked on lifting her confidence and self-belief. Once she firmly made up her mind and altered her schedule and habits to make time for writing, she asked herself why she had not decided to write her book much earlier.

As she developed the storyline and characters, Omara found the creation process so enjoyable and satisfying that she eagerly looked forward to writing something every evening after dinner and on weekends. It did not take long for her to set targets and goals and take her writing seriously. All her years of intense reading, scientific explorations, and worldwide traveling came together as sources of inspiration for her debut science-fiction novel, The Space Traveller’s Lover.

She has gained the most satisfaction, not only because it fulfills her dream of following in the footsteps of her sci-fi heroes but also because it enabled her to test her ability to master English, a second language for the native Cuban Spanish speaker. “Writing a book in English and for it not only to read well but to be acclaimed has been tremendously satisfying,” says Omara. “My aim was always to tell an epic story of love versus war, the power of human emotion against cold and dispassionate logic, and to draw upon my fascination with the universe.”

As for Omara’s hobbies outside of work, astronomy is her favourite pastime, and she regularly jets off around the globe to watch the night sky, sunsets, and total solar eclipses. BOOK INTRODUCTION

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The story of “The Space Traveller’s Lover” is one about love—the love between

humans, humans and aliens and the love for our planet.

At the end of the 21st century, when humans were struggling to survive amidst a

climate change catastrophe, there came an alien invasion of ruthless beings

aimed at revenge and control.

But the aliens’ plans are disrupted by the one thing they thought could never

happen.

Rothwen, their elite and vanguard soldier, dared to take exception to a human. A

bright young student called Erin.

From now on, the aliens find themselves in a battle they had barely prepared for

—the battle for love and determination to fight against all odds.

And Erin has to fight on many levels – for her identity, loyalties, cherished world, and

impossible love with Rothwen, which will take every ounce of her will to resolve.

Will she stay with her best friend from childhood who loves her deeply? Or will

she stay with the all-powerful alien soldier who shows no mercy?

In The Space Traveller’s Lover every heartbeat is a countdown, every moment a

battle between love and duty. But the ultimate question remains—can a single

human heart turn the tide of an interstellar war?

IN CONVERSATION WITH AUTHOR OMARA WILLIAMS.

Growing up in Cuba, how did your early experiences shape your passion for writing?

From a very young age, I developed a passion for learning, reading, and writing about my favorite science subjects. Whenever I had some free time from school chores, I would go straight to my books and spend long hours reading, writing, and listening to music. Although my family and friends used to complain, over time, they accepted me for how I was: a very studious girl with a passion for science and very little time for anything else. But I couldn’t feel happier, as it was the perfect way to escape from an environment of scarcity, misery, and fear. I was not fond of the communist ideas, so I decided to live in a world that I would create for myself. Can you describe the moment you decided to write The Space Traveller’s Lover? What inspired you? To continue reading the full interview, click here to download our 2024 latest issue.