From one of the most significant intellectuals of our time comes an extraordinary story about exile and a celebration of an irretrievable past. A fatal medical diagnosis in 1991 convinced Edward Said that he should leave behind a record of where he was born and spent his childhood. In this memoir, he rediscovers the lost Arab world of his early years in Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. Said writes with great passion and wit about his family and friends from his birthplace Jerusalem, schools in Cairo, and summers in the mountains above Beirut, as well as his time in boarding school and college in the United States. In doing so, he reveals an unimaginable world full of rich, colorful characters and exotic Eastern landscapes. In the background lies the confusion of identity that young Said experienced as he grappled with the dissonance of being an American citizen, a Christian, and a Palestinian, ultimately feeling like an outsider.