Edward Said, a professor of comparative literature, theorist, and activist, was one of two children born in Jerusalem to a Palestinian Christian father and a Lebanese Christian mother. Said shuttled between Cairo and Jerusalem until he was 12 years old and was admitted to the Anglican St. George’s Academy in 1947. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, his family fled to Egypt as refugees. In 1963, he began teaching at Columbia University. He taught at dozens of universities, including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. He became a professor in 1977. He made a groundbreaking contribution to the social sciences with his book *Orientalism*, in which he analyzed the representation of the East in the West by the West, using texts by renowned Orientalist writers of the time.
In addition to his works—which have been translated into many languages and explore the processes by which modernism, capitalism, and imperialism took root—he authored books on classical music and wrote countless articles addressing the Palestinian issue. Said passed away on September 24, 2003, due to leukemia.