Out of Place: A Memoir

Synopsis

In this deeply personal memoir, Edward Said traces the experiences that shaped one of the twentieth century's most influential public intellectuals. Born in Jerusalem in 1935 and raised between Palestine, Cairo, and Lebanon before being educated in the United States, Said grew up navigating multiple languages, cultures, religions, and identities without ever feeling fully at home in any of them. His recollections move through family life, elite colonial schools, political upheaval, and exile, capturing a world that would soon disappear forever.

Written with remarkable clarity and emotional restraint, Out of Place is both an intimate coming-of-age story and a meditation on displacement, memory, and belonging. Long before becoming the foremost voice on Orientalism and the Palestinian experience, Said was a child struggling to understand where he fit in a fractured world. Rich in detail and literary insight, this award-winning memoir offers an essential portrait of the formative years behind one of modern history's most important thinkers.

About the Author

Edward W. Said (1935–2003) was a Palestinian-American literary critic, scholar, musician, and public intellectual. A longtime professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, he transformed the study of literature and postcolonial theory with his landmark book Orientalism. Throughout his career he wrote extensively on culture, imperialism, music, and the question of Palestine, becoming one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. Out of Place won the 2000 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction.

Publisher

Vintage

Publication Date

September 12, 2000

Format

Paperback

Pages

336

Subjects

Memoir · Biography · Palestinian History · Middle Eastern Studies · Literary Nonfiction · Cultural Criticism

ISBN

9780679730675