ABSTRACT
Edward Said (1935-2003) became one of the most widely known, and controversial, intellectuals in the world during his lifetime. He was that rare breed of academic critic who also performs the role of a vocal public intellectual, doing more than any other person to place the plight of Palestine before a world audience. His importance as a cultural theorist has been established in two areas: his impact on the growing school of post-colonial studies, particularly through his book Orientalism; and his insistence on the importance of the ‘worldliness’ or material contexts of the text and the critic. This insistence placed him, for a time, outside the mainstream of contemporary theory, but has been soundly vindicated as the political and cultural functions of literary writing have been re-confirmed.
