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Summary
Summary
The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Majla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted about her cultural background and identity. But while her father and brother shared a passion for debate about the politics of the Middle East and her mother held on deeply to her Lebanese roots, Said was satisfied to be her father's darling daughter, content with her life on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Her home life was rich and embracing, but outside her apartment she felt entirely unsure about who she was supposed to be, and often in denial of the differences she sensed between her family and those around her. She may have been born a Palestinian Lebanese American, but in her own mind she grew up first as a WASP (baptized Episcopalian in Boston; attending Chapin, the wealthy Upper East Side girls' school), then as a teenage Jew, essentially denying her true roots, even to herself, until well into adulthood. The fact that her father was Edward Said - the famous intellectual, founding father of postcolonial thought, and outspoken advocate for the political and human rights of the Palestinian people - only made things more complicated.
Said knew that her parents identified deeply with the countries they had come from, but growing up in a Manhattan world that was defined largely by class and confirmity, where she felt her family was a cultural island all its own, she sought comfort by fitting in with ther peers, until, ultimately, the psychological toll of her self-hatred began to threaten her health.
As she grew older, and made increased visits to Palestine and Beirut, Said's worldview shifted. The attacks on the World Trade Center, and some of the ways in which Americans responded, finally made it impossible for her to continue to pick and choose her identity, and allowed her to see herself and her passions more clearly. In Looking for Palestine , she shares the journey to this understanding and the experience of growing up in an immigrant family and learning to embrace its cultures.
Praise for Looking for Palestine
'Najla Said's Looking for Palestine is a compassionate and candid book on her courageous coming-of-age in contemporary America. Said is a brilliant, talented, and sensitive artist with a larger-than-life, loving father.' Professor Cornel West
'A deeply penetrating, often hilarious, and occasionally devastating account of growing up Arab-American. After finally finding the conviction to be at peace with herself, Najla Said has written more than a memoir. Looking for Palestine is a survivor's guide for all of us who live with that feeling of being out of place wherever we are.' Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America
'Thoughtful, searching, and open-eyed, Looking for Palestine takes readers on a journey into an Arab-American girl's search for identity . . . A haunting and singular life story.' Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Crescent
'It can be a difficult story to tell- that of one's discontent in the midst of privilege. And yet with great skill, humor, and poignancy, Said accomplishes just that. In the end, she is her late father's great inheritor, ever journeying toward that elusive home.' Alicia Erian, author of Towelhead
Author Notes
Authors Bio, not available
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Said's aching memoir explores her coming-of-age as a Christian Arab-American on New York's Upper West Side. Her father, Palestinian-American scholar and human-rights activist Edward Said, was always her "temperamental soul mate"-passionate about art and literature, but not good with practical details-while her Lebanese-American mother managed daily life with aplomb. Said describes feeling divided by her open-minded, heterogeneous neighborhood near Columbia University. Her birth in 1974 coincided with the start of Lebanon's decades-long civil war and continually exacerbated anxieties about her "otherness." She relates how the escalating violence and growing anti-Arab sentiment in the U.S. eroded her self-confidence and contributed to an eating disorder. She admits to resenting her parents' secular-humanist ideals as a child, and her brother's smoother mix of Arab and American, heightening her feelings of "otherness." Some readers may find her use of "Daddy" and "Mommy" oddly regressive, but these terms nicely reveal what she really desired from her parents. Empowering experiences like taking acting classes and joining an Arab-American theater group balance unsettling accounts of a harrowing 1992 visit to Gaza and her father's 2003 death. Her complex persona, self-deprecating humor, and focus on the personal rather than the political broaden the appeal of Said's book beyond any particular ethnic, cultural, or religious audience. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
In an illuminating memoir, the daughter of Edward Said, the writer, academic and symbol of Palestinian self-determination, explores her complex family history and its role in shaping her identity. The author grappled with her convoluted family tree as a child, but she has grown weary trying to make sense of the conflicting information she has gathered. "I am a Palestinian-Lebanese-American Christian woman, but I grew up as a Jew in New York City. I began my life, however as a WASP," she writes. Said comes from a warm, loving home often populated by visiting literary celebrities such as Lillian Hellman and Cornel West, and she is confused by what others say regarding Arab culture. "I resigned myself to believing that everything people said about my culture was true," she writes, "because it was exhausting and futile to try to convince anyone otherwise." The author was a high achiever attending Princeton, yet she also battled anorexia. Following a family trip to the Middle East, including her father's homeland of Palestine, Said learned more about her family history. Her perspective shifted when she realized how little she knew about conditions in the Middle East, especially Gaza. As for many, Said's life changed following 9/11. To many Americans, the author became part of a group, an Arab-American. Said joined an Arab-American theater group, exploring and enlarging the boundaries of her identity. Following her father's death, the author spent a summer alone in Lebanon. During her visit, she discovered a compelling connection to the land and people and, ultimately, herself. An enlightening, warm, timely coming-of-age story exploring the author's search for identity framed within the confounding maze of America's relationship with the Middle East.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Playwright Said was raised in Manhattan's Upper West Side as the Palestinian Lebanese American Christian daughter of parents who raised her as a secular humanist. Her father was the world-famous intellectual Edward Said. Idyllic, sun-soaked, early-childhood trips to 1970s Beirut, full of family and love, only slowly betrayed a simmering turmoil therein, and Said spends most of her life understanding and recalibrating her perceptions of her ancestral homelands versus those seen through the lens trained on the Middle East by the world at large. While Najla grows up a prep-school kid in the 1980s and 1990s, she digests narrow views of the Arab character, turns them inward in painful ways, and struggles to understand the complicated patchwork of her identity. Although those with stakes in any of Said's backgrounds will have a more pointed interest in her explorations, most readers will relate to her ultimately universal discussion of growing up other. Said's memoir is both a dear tribute to her father's work and proof that acceptance of one's roots the hurdle to success and success itself is most always hard earned.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2010 Booklist