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Reflections on Exile

And Other Essays

Author Edward W. Said
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Paperback
$26.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
6.11"W x 9.2"H x 1.12"D   | 22 oz | 20 per carton
On sale Oct 21, 2025 | 656 Pages | 9780593687918
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From one of the world's most beloved and respected public intellectuals comes a collection of essays examining culture, the literary canon, and the ever-shifting terrain of history

"This is surely a major work, among the most provocative and cogent accounts of culture and the humanities that America has produced in recent years."―Martha C. Nussbaum, The New York Times Book Review

Edward W. Said’s writings have transformed the field of literary studies. In this bracing collection of essays, one of the most beloved and respected public intellectuals of our time examines culture, the literary canon, and the ever-shifting terrain of history.

Said’s topics are many and diverse, from the Hollywood heroics of Tarzan to the machismo of Ernest Hemingway to the shades of difference that divide Alexandria and Cairo. In the title essay, the widely admired "Reflections on Exile," he weighs his own estrangement from his home country and the fate of the Palestinian people against the literary canon’s most romanticized fugitives. “What could be more intransigent than the conflict between Zionist Jews and Arab Palestinians?” Said asks. “Palestinians feel that they have been turned into exiles by the proverbial people of exile.”

The culmination of thirty-five years of scholarship, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays is an invigorating and life-affirming achievement, a work of intellectual, emotional, and moral rigor.
“[The essays are] little lamps that light up the great tangled forest of literature and philosophy.”
―David Kirby, San Francisco Chronicle

“These essays . . . form a remarkably cohesive whole and attest to the rigor and passionate seriousness of a lifetime of scholarship.”
―Kate Blakinger, Boston Review

“[Said] challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area.”
—The Washington Post Book World

“[Said] argued for freedom, from violence and from lies. . . . His voice is irreplaceable, but his legacy will endure. He has many lives ahead of him.”
—New Left Review

“Said's extraordinary moral imagination, political range, and cultural awareness provide a unique perspective.”
—Richard Falk
© Mariam C. Said
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 died in 2003 in New York City.

He is the author of twenty-two books which have been translated into 35 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). Besides his academic work, he wrote a twice-monthly column for Al-Hayat and Al-Ahram; was a regular contributor to newspapers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East; and was the music critic for The Nation. View titles by Edward W. Said

About

From one of the world's most beloved and respected public intellectuals comes a collection of essays examining culture, the literary canon, and the ever-shifting terrain of history

"This is surely a major work, among the most provocative and cogent accounts of culture and the humanities that America has produced in recent years."―Martha C. Nussbaum, The New York Times Book Review

Edward W. Said’s writings have transformed the field of literary studies. In this bracing collection of essays, one of the most beloved and respected public intellectuals of our time examines culture, the literary canon, and the ever-shifting terrain of history.

Said’s topics are many and diverse, from the Hollywood heroics of Tarzan to the machismo of Ernest Hemingway to the shades of difference that divide Alexandria and Cairo. In the title essay, the widely admired "Reflections on Exile," he weighs his own estrangement from his home country and the fate of the Palestinian people against the literary canon’s most romanticized fugitives. “What could be more intransigent than the conflict between Zionist Jews and Arab Palestinians?” Said asks. “Palestinians feel that they have been turned into exiles by the proverbial people of exile.”

The culmination of thirty-five years of scholarship, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays is an invigorating and life-affirming achievement, a work of intellectual, emotional, and moral rigor.

Praise

“[The essays are] little lamps that light up the great tangled forest of literature and philosophy.”
―David Kirby, San Francisco Chronicle

“These essays . . . form a remarkably cohesive whole and attest to the rigor and passionate seriousness of a lifetime of scholarship.”
―Kate Blakinger, Boston Review

“[Said] challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area.”
—The Washington Post Book World

“[Said] argued for freedom, from violence and from lies. . . . His voice is irreplaceable, but his legacy will endure. He has many lives ahead of him.”
—New Left Review

“Said's extraordinary moral imagination, political range, and cultural awareness provide a unique perspective.”
—Richard Falk

Author

© Mariam C. Said
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 died in 2003 in New York City.

He is the author of twenty-two books which have been translated into 35 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). Besides his academic work, he wrote a twice-monthly column for Al-Hayat and Al-Ahram; was a regular contributor to newspapers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East; and was the music critic for The Nation. View titles by Edward W. Said

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