Edward Said

By Dominique Edde | Translated by Trista Selous, Ros Schwartz | Verso (2019)

An intimate account of Edward Saïd’s life and thought

Edward Said is a personal, literary portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most influential scholars, written by his close friend and confidante. Here, Lebanese novelist and essayist Dominique Eddé offers a fascinating and fresh presentation of his oeuvre from his earliest writings on Joseph Conrad to his most famous texts, Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism. 

Eddé weaves together accounts of the genesis and content of Said’s work, his intellectual development, and her own reflections and personal recollections of their friendship, which began in 1979 and lasted until Said’s death in 2003. In this intimate and searching portrait of Said’s thought, Eddé continues to maintain their dialogue despite his death, trying to make peace with the loss of a collaborator with whom she still wants to talk and disagree.

Bringing together personal reflection and theoretical innovation, reflective mourning and immediate argument, Eddé has written a testament to a great intellectual passion.

Both specialists of Said’s work and newcomers will find much to learn in this rich portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most important intellectuals.