On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain (Bloomsbury Revelations) - Softcover

Said's last book is a series of dazzling case studies exploring the idea of lateness in a range of composers, writers and artists. * London Review of Books * What Said stands for - critical intelligence, high art and the preservation of the language - must be at the centre of our lives. This book is a fine monument to his life and work * Hanif Kureishi * Gracefully unquiet, probing and wise ... Said's own elegiac masterpiece of late style * Financial Times *

On Late Style was the final published work of Edward Said, author of Orientalism and one of the most important cultural critics of the post-war era. Said explores the works of artists in their twilight years and find that these works are often rebellious rather than conservative, prophetic not nostalgic and creatively restless far more than they are complacent. Deftly ranging across literature, music, art and film and the works of such artists as Euripides, Beethoven, Mozart, Genet and Mann, On Late Style is a dazzling display from one of the great critics of the 20th century. The book includes a foreword by Mariam C. Said and an introduction by Michael Wood.