Edward Said: Criticism and Society

His key text is not Orientalism but Beginnings, and the Palestinian experience informs all his texts, not simply those which deal explicitly with the catastrophe of 1948. Palestinian life has been scattered, discontinuous and affected by what he calls the synchronised rhythms of disturbed time . Edward Said’s ouevre mirrors this state but simultaneously transcends it in a permanent search for a new synthesis. Hussein argues that this informs Said’s approach not only to Conrad, Swift and Eliot, but also to Lukacs, Williams, Gramsci and Adorno.