Edward Said: Writing in the Service of Life

For The Markaz Review’s Public Intellectual Issue, I wrote about Edward Said’s impact on me as a writer as well as the legacy he left behind:

By his own admission, Said found no topic so tedious to discuss as identity, which is ironic since, next to representations, his writing on the subject played such a large role in my conceptualization of identity, whether in my scholarly work, novels, or for my own sense of self. My first encounter with these ideas came towards the end of Culture and Imperialism. He talks about the push and pull between centers and peripherals, between hegemonic powers and those they impinge upon. These forces are pivotal in shaping who we are and who we become. He says flashes of brilliance result from such “contrapuntal” living, from our awareness of and resistance (in literature, in art and film, in politics) to “the imperialist power that would otherwise compel you to disappear or to accept some miniature version of yourself as a doctrine to be passed out on a course syllabus.”