Beginnings

“It is the sense of total independence and, at times, of prophetic vision which makes [Beginnings] … exhilarating.”―Times Higher Education Supplement“An immensely useful book by one of our most brilliant critics.”—The Washington Post Book World“To understand Edward Said’s Beginnings is to understand what is most importantly going on in contemporary critical theory, both in America and Europe. An immensely useful book by one of our most brilliant critics.”―Richard Poirier“Said reads passionately and bravely… . He challenges everyone to read fiction in the most comprehensive manner possible.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

EDWARD W. SAID was born in 1935 in Jerusalem, raised in Jerusalem and Cairo, and educated in the United States, where he attended Princeton (B.A. 1957) and Harvard (M.A. 1960; Ph.D. 1964). In 1963, he began teaching at Columbia University, where he was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature. He is the author of twenty-two books which have been translated into thirty-five languages, including Orientalism (1978); The Question of Palestine (1979); Covering Islam (1980); The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983); Culture and Imperialism (1993); Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine and the Middle East Peace Process (1996); and Out of Place: A Memoir (1999). He died in 2003 in New York City.