After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives

by Edward Said, Jean Mohr

Overview

A searing portrait of Palestinian life and identity that is at once an exploration of Edward Said's unclaimable past and a testimony to the lives of those living in exile.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231114493
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/14/1999
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	246,333
Product dimensions:	9.60(w) x 7.40(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born in Jerusalem in 1935, Edward W. Said was one of the world's most celebrated, outspoken, and influential public intellectuals until his death on September 24, 2003. He is the author of more than twenty books that have been translated into thirty-six languages, including Beginnings (1975); The Question of Palestine (1979); the internationally acclaimed Orientalism (1979); Covering Islam (1980); The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983); After the Last Sky (1986); Musical Elaborations (1991); Culture and Imperialism (1993); Out of Place: A Memoir (1999); Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (2001); Power, Politics, and Culture (2001); and Freud and the Non-European (2003). He began teaching at Columbia University in 1963 and became University Professor of English and Comparative Literature there in 1992. He was a past president of the Modern Language Association and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Society of Literature, and the American Philosophical Society. Said was the recipient of numerous prizes and distinctions—including twenty honorary doctorates—and he was first U.S. citizen to receive the prestigious Sultan Owais Prize.

Table of Contents

	Preface to The 1999 Edition	vii
	Acknowledgments	xiii
	Introduction: Palestinian Lives	3
1	States	11
2	Interiors	51
3	Emergence	87
4	Past and Future	127
	Postscript: The Fall of Beirut	168

Editorial Reviews

Named an essential book for understanding the Israel-Hamas war.

|Los Angeles Times

When Said shows us the Palestinian experience min al-dakhil, from the inside, he means not the inside of the place, but the inside of the mind. Palestine becomes a state of mind. And that is what makes the book so exceptional. It is an extended voyage through the mind of exile.

The Nation

A very personal text, and a very moving one, about an internal struggle: the anguish of living with displacement, with exile.... The most beautiful piece of prose... about what it means to be a Palestinian.

The Guardian

The power and magic of [Said and Mohr's] collective statement lies in this––no matter how displaced or dispossessed, a decisive border separates the native and the tourist.

Jerusalem Post

Said writes to the photos so assiduously and with such effect as to make one powerful essay.

New York Times Book Review

When Said shows us the Palestinian experience min al-dakhil, from the inside, he means not the inside of the place, but the inside of the mind. Palestine becomes a state of mind. And that is what makes the book so exceptional. It is an extended voyage through the mind of exile.

Nation

A very personal text, and a very moving one, about an internal struggle: the anguish of living with displacement, with exile. . . . The most beautiful piece of prose . . . about what it means to be a Palestinian.

Guardian

The theme of this book is exile, expressed through the striking photographs of a people held in a state of transience and impermanence. While the photographs rivet the reader's attention, Said (English and Comparative Literature, Columbia) puts their pain and dislocation into words. The photos show the Palestinians within a landscape, but somehow, isolated, reflecting Said's conclusion that ``exile is a series of portraits, without names, without contexts.'' What is the Palestinian contexthow can Palestinians even know they existwhen the past decades have seen only transition, a loss of boundaries, a denial of identities? The interplay of text and photos makes a powerful statement and reflects Said's poetic skills. Highly recommended for readers seeking the faces and feelings behind the headlines. Elizabeth R. Hayford, President, Associated Colls. of the Midwest, Chicago

Library Journal