Edward Wadie Saïd (pronounced /edward wædiːʕ sæʕiːd/ Arabic: إدوارد وديع سعيد, Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian American literary theorist, cultural critic, and an advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism. Robert Fisk described him as the Palestinians' "most powerful political voice."...
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Edward Wadie Saïd (pronounced /edward wædiːʕ sæʕiːd/ Arabic: إدوارد وديع سعيد, Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian American literary theorist, cultural critic, and an advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism. Robert Fisk described him as the Palestinians' "most powerful political voice."
Said was born in Jerusalem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine) on November 1, 1935. His father, a US citizen with Protestant Palestinian origins, was a businessman and had served under General Pershing in World War I. He moved to Cairo in the decade before Edward's birth. His mother was born in Nazareth, also of Protestant Christian Palestinian descent. His sister was the historian and writer Rosemarie Said Zahlan.
Said once referred to himself as a "Christian wrapped in a Muslim culture":
With an unexceptionally Arab family name like...
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