Out Of Place: A Memoir

Edward Said experienced both British and American imperialism as the old Arab order crumbled in the late forties and early fifties. His account of his early life reveals the influences that have informed his groundbreaking books, 'Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism'.

Edward Said was born in Jerusalem, and brought up in Cairo, spending every summer in the Lebanese mountain village of Dhour el Shweir, until he was "banished" to America in 1951. 'Out of Place' is a powerful act of emotional archaeology and memory, exploring an essentially irrecoverable past. As ill health sets him thinking about endings, Edward Said returns to his beginnings, in this intensely personal memoir of his ferociously demanding "Victorian" father, and his adored, inspiring, yet ambivalent mother.