An Interview with Edward W. Said

A slightly shorter version of the following was published in Hebrew as ‘Soon I won't be here’ (with Daphna Vard) in Ha'aretz 26 February 1993. Since there was never an English-language version – Ha'aretz began publishing an English edition only a few years later – it has largely been forgotten, and has never been re-published. It was, we believe, the first major ‘introduction’ of Edward Said to a non-specialist Israeli audience: his The Question of Palestine had been published there by a small left-wing press, but Orientalism was translated only in 2000 and most of Said's other works remain unavailable in Hebrew (or indeed in Arabic). The fact that the article was thus directed at readers either with little knowledge of Said, or who were likely to have a vague but hostile image of him, explains the sometimes elementary-level nature of the questioning. Also relevant to its original context are that it coincided both with the publication of Culture and Imperialism, and with Said's having very shortly before been diagnosed with the illness which, a decade later, was to take his life.