Edward Said

From MarxWiki

Author of many works, most importantly Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism. He was born in 1935 in Jerusalem but spent his childhood in Egypt with frequent visits to Palestine. He was educated in the West at Harvard and Princeton. He became a professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University.He was actively involved in the movement for an independent Palestine until his death in 2003 of cancer. Because of his involvement in the Palestinian case, he was a controversial figure. He was part of the Palestine National Council but broke with Yassar Arafat after he signed the Oslo accords in 1993. Said was against the agreement because it did not give Palestinians the right to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel. He proposed the elimination of the state of Israel and creating a single nation in which Palestinians and Jews had equal rights. Said, in Culture and Imperialism, emphasizes the importance of the novel as tool of imperialism. Furthermore, when looking at novels written during the age of imperialism, it is important to consider the effects of the social, political and cultural enviornment that shaped the narrative.