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.

萨义德（Edward W.Said，1935-2003），当今世界最具影响力的文学与文化批评家之一，1963年起为哥伦比亚大学英国文学与比较文学教授。代表性著作有：《东方学》（1978；曾获美国国家书评家奖，三联书店1999年出版中译本）、《巴勒斯坦问题》（1979）、《世界・文本・批评家》（1983）、《文化与帝国主义》（1993；三联书店2003年出版中译本）、《知识分子论》（1994；三联书店2001年出版中译本）以及《流离失所的政治：巴勒斯坦自决的奋斗，1969-1994》（1994）等。萨义德还是有名的乐评家、歌剧鉴赏家、钢琴家，并为巴勒斯坦在西方世界最雄辩的代言人。