The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, 2nd Edition

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SAID, EDWARD WILLIAM (1935–2003) Palestinian American academic, literary critic and writer born in Jerusalem. Said's lifelong sympathy with the Palestinian cause is reflected in works including The Question of Palestine (1979), Covering Islam (1981), After the Last Sky (1986) and Blaming the Victims (1988). He was a prominent member of the Palestinian National Council, the parliament-in-exile, for 14 years until he quietly stepped down in 1991. After emigrating to the United States, he was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He lived in New York until his death in 2003.

Said's most influential and widely read work is Orientalism (first published 1978). This explores the way in which Orientalists, ...