Edward Said, the eminent Palestinian-American public intellectual, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, and the father of postcolonial studies, born on November 1, 1935.

Said was born in Jerusalem, part of the British Mandate of Palestine.

He was born into a wealthy Christian Arab family and grew up in Jerusalem and Cairo before moving to the United States to attend boarding school as a teen. He graduated from Princeton and Harvard universities and became a full professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University in 1970.

During his career, he published several influential scholarly books and became a fierce advocate for Palestinian political rights.

Sources: history.com , wiki, currentaffairs.org