Out of Place: A Memoir
A theoretical study that examines African culture and identity through the lens of cultural philosophy, exploring diversity and the frameworks used to understand it.
Work Information
A work that examines African culture and identity through cultural philosophy.
This philosophical book connects cultural theory with the African diaspora, reconsidering how identity is formed and understood.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Knopf
- Published
- 1999-09-14
- Pages
- 320 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 16.76 x 2.97 x 24.16 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780394587394
- ISBN-10
- 0394587391
- Price
- 2024 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Biographies & Memoirs
Out of Place is an extraordinary story of exile, a narrative of many departures, 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 Arab landscape of his early years--"the many places and people [who] no longer exist . . . Essentially a lost world." Vast changes occurred as Palestine became Israel, Lebanon was transformed by twenty years of civil war, and the colonial Egypt of King Farouk disappeared forever by 1952. Born in Jerusalem in 1935, Said was the only son in a prosperous family of five children. His ferociously demanding father upheld many Victorian values and ideals, and his adoring mother inspired his love of music, theater, and literature. His aunt Nabiha gave him his first sense of what it meant to leave Palestine, something never discussed by the family. Said writes with great passion and wit about his family and his friends--from schools in Cairo and summers in the mountains above Beirut to, as he grew older, camp in Maine, boarding school in Massachusetts, and college at Princeton University. Underscoring all is the confusion of identity as Said had to come to terms with the dissonance of being an American citizen, a Christian and a Palestinian, and, ultimately, an outsider. Out of Place reveals an unimaginable world of rich, colorful characters, of exotic eastern landscapes. Lyrical and beautifully crafted, it is often extremely frank as well as intimate and humorous. Said has exposed a most personal past, letting us observe the people who formed him and who enabled him to triumph as one of the most important intellectuals of our time. Out of Place won the New Yorker Book Award for nonfiction in 2000.
Edward W. Said is University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of seventeen books, including Orientalism , which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism, Covering Islam, Peace and Its Discontents, The Politics of Dispossession, Representations of the Intellectual , and The Question of Palestine are available in Vintage paperback.
Reviews
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確かに興味深い本です、が・・・
昨年惜しまれつつ亡くなったエドワード・サイード教授｡ 私も同教授の数々の著書を読んで､学ぶところ大です｡ この本は､パレスチナ人の中に生まれながら｢エドワード｣と名づけられ､自らのアイデンティティーを求めてさまよい続けた人の物語です｡ ただ、一つだけはっきりさせておかねばならないのは､彼の人生は典型的なパレスチナ人の人生とはあまりにもかけ離れている､ということです。 簡単に言えば､多くのパレスチナ人がイスラエルに追放され､難民キャンプで肩を寄せ合い暮らしていた頃､｢エドワード｣は｢ハーバードの修士課程中」の｢夏休み｣に、｢ギリシャ｣を旅行していたわけです。 それ自体は悪い事ではないのですが､そういった人でなければパレスチナ人の｢語り部｣にはなれない、(難民は生きるのに精一杯で勉強したり本を書いたりする暇も余裕もない)というのが、実はパレスチナ人の本当の悲劇なのかもしれません｡
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Edward Said autobiography
Excellent book to read
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Nostalgia for an unhappy childhood
Students I forced to read Edward Said’s now-more-than-ever relevant (if contested) “Orientalism” never expressed any gratitude; it’s a pity perhaps, as we struggle to situate culture between cultures, that they didn’t get to read his 1999 memoir “Out of Place”, in which he recreates with seeming perfect recall his in-many-ways wayward youth, navigating between Jerusalem, Cairo and Lebanon and between English, Arabic and French and, above all, between his domineering parents. “Natural languages” are not all that natural — not spontaneous, at any rate — and Said’s careful attention to style is somewhat reminiscent of Lawrence Durrell, as is the world of colonial decline he charts. “Out of Place” celebrates a lost, and in many ways, unhappy childhood of great privilege — his father is a wealthy Cairene businessman, but a martinet — so Said enjoys little freedom, always feeling he is unable to live up to his parents’ expectations. There is something Proustian in his painstaking resurrection of lost time, and not just lost time, but a whole lost world, that cannot be recovered, as the Palestine he and his family hail from ceases to exist when Said is 13. First published in 1999, the book is not intended as a reflection on the current political crisis, but it is impossible not to think of the current crisis reading of the rich and varied culture of the country that has been wiped off the map.
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Essentiel
Il faut lire ce livre !
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So sad we lost this brilliant mind way too soon
So sad we lost this brilliant mind way too soon. This is different from anything else he wrote. It tells the story of his childhood, who he was and where he came from with unbelievable candor.
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not new book
This is not a new book. When I received the parcel, I found the cover page corner bent and damaged. This is very frustrating, as I expected a brand-new book wrapped in plastic. I had planned to give it as a gift, but now it’s not suitable for that.