Tag Archives: Kai Bird

ON EDWARD SAID

There seemed to be two parallel streams in his life. The first—discipline, family order, schooling—dutifully performed but disavowed. The other, an “underground or subterranean” Edward who longed not only to read but to be a book. Everything artistic belonged to this second version: his tastes in reading, his love of music, the creativity he unpersuasively palms off in the memoir as “fibbing.” His childhood friends agreed: “Said was never really part of us … He lived a life separate from us, coddled, spoilt and adored… Timothy Brennan*

This week, Timothy Brennan and Kai Bird will discuss Brennan’s acclaimed new book Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said. For information on registering for the online conversation, see:

TIMOTHY BRENNAN ON EDWARD SAID, with KAI BIRD

City University of New York

Wednesday, March 24.

3 pm on the West Coast, 6 pm East Coast.

*Timothy Brennan, Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), text © Timothy Brennan, courtesy of the author and publisher.

Image below courtesy and © Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Above: Edward Said.