This was a seminal book when it first came out in 1979.
More so, as its author is the well-known intellectual Edward W. Said.
In this book of essays, reissued in 2024 due to the Gaza invasion, Said laments that Palestine has ceased to exist and, worse, ceased to be a question for the West, the US, and the Arab world.
Said has since passed away, but he would surely lament that in 2024 and 2025, the world is still wondering, Is There a Question of Palestine?
Said calls himself a Palestinian in this book [p. 25], as he was born in Jerusalem, then part of a region known as Palestine under the Ottoman Empire.
Said says his mom is also a Palestinian, as she was born in Nazareth, even though her mother, Munira, was Lebanese. [p. 5 Out of Place, A Memoir by Edward W. Said].
Said’s dad is Wadie Ibrahim. Wadie later became William due to Anglicisation of his Arabic name, then common in that region and era.
Wadie was born in Jerusalem in 1893 or 1895. Origins obscure; as Said said, family ties then were fluid and ever-changing, and even invented.
In fact, he said he can’t trace why his surname is Said or why his given name is the English form Edward.