Edward Wadie Said was a Palestinian and American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of post-colonial studies, establishing himself as a major intellectual figure in late twentieth-century academia. Said is best known for his book Orientalism, published in 1978. This work became a foundational text in cultural criticism, examining how the Western world has historically perceived and represented the Orient. The book critiques the cultural representations that underpin Orientalism as a system of understanding and dominating the East. His analytical approach and theoretical framework transformed academic discourse across multiple fields. Researchers in literary theory, literary criticism, and Middle Eastern studies adopted and built upon his model of textual analysis, making his work central to how scholars approach questions of culture, representation, and power.