This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate—one that is now more critical than ever. With the rigorous scholarship that he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile's passion (he was Palestinian by birth and had been a member of the Palestine National Council), Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied—as well as in the conscience of the West. He updated this landmark work to portray the changed status of Palestine and its people in light of such developments as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the intifada, the Gulf War, and the ongoing Middle East peace initiative.
For anyone interested in this region and its future, The Question of Palestine remains the most useful and authoritative account available.
Edward Said (1935-2003) was one of the world's most influential literary and cultural critics. Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, he was the author of twenty-two books, including Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism and Out of Place. He was also a music critic, opera scholar, pianist and the most eloquent spokesman for the Palestinian cause in the West.
'For those of us who see the struggle between Eastern and Western descriptions of the world as both an internal and an external struggle, Edward Said has for many years been an especially important voice.' Salman Rushdie
'[A]rguably New York's most famous public intellectual after Hannah Arendt and Susan Sontag, and America's most prominent advocate for Palestinian rights.' Pankaj Mishra, New Yorker
'Edward Said is among the truly important intellectuals of our century.' Nadine Gordimer
