Edward Wadie Said ( , ; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a Palestinian literary theoretician, professor of English, history and comparative literature at Columbia University, and a public intellectual who was a founder of post-colonialism. Edward W. Said was a Palestinian Arab born in the Jerusalem city of Mandatory Palestine (1920–48), and was an American citizen by way of his father, Wadir Said, a U.S. Army-veteran of the First World War (1914–18); as such, Said publicly advocated for the political and human rights of the Palestinian nation.