From one of the most important intellectuals of our time comes an extraordinary story of exile and a celebration of an irrecoverable past. A fatal medical diagnosis in 1991 convinced Edward Said that he should leave a record of where he was born and spent his childhood, and so with this memoir he rediscovers the lost Arab world of his early years in Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Said writes with great passion and wit about his family and his friends from his birthplace in Jerusalem, schools in Cairo, and summers in the mountains above Beirut, to boarding school and college in the United States, revealing an unimaginable world of rich, colorful characters and exotic eastern landscapes. Underscoring all is the confusion of identity the young Said experienced as he came to terms with the dissonance of being an American citizen, a Christian and a Palestinian, and, ultimately, an outsider. Richly detailed, moving, often profound, Out of Place depicts a young man's coming of age and the genesis of a great modern thinker.

薩義德（Edward W.Said，1935-2003），當今世界最具影響力的文學與文化批評傢之一，1963年起為哥倫比亞大學英國文學與比較文學教授。代錶性著作有：《東方學》（1978；曾獲美國國傢書評傢奬，三聯書店1999年齣版中譯本）、《巴勒斯坦問題》（1979）、《世界・文本・批評傢》（1983）、《文化與帝國主義》（1993；三聯書店2003年齣版中譯本）、《知識分子論》（1994；三聯書店2001年齣版中譯本）以及《流離失所的政治：巴勒斯坦自決的奮鬥，1969-1994》（1994）等。薩義德還是有名的樂評傢、歌劇鑒賞傢、鋼琴傢，並為巴勒斯坦在西方世界最雄辯的代言人。