After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives
Edward W. Said
A meditative collaboration with photographer Jean Mohr — part essay, part portrait — on the fragmented everyday existence of Palestinians at home and in exile.
Conceived after Said saw Jean Mohr’s photographs of Palestinians taken for a UN project in 1983, After the Last Sky interweaves Said’s prose with Mohr’s images to portray a people living in fragments — inside Israel, in the occupied territories, in the camps of Lebanon, and across the diaspora. The title comes from a line of Mahmoud Darwish: “Where should we go after the last frontier? Where should the birds fly after the last sky?”
Less an argument than a meditation, the book dwells on interiors, gestures, and interrupted lives — the texture of a national existence denied a single place. It is among Said’s most personal works, written in exile about exile, and it treats ordinary Palestinians not as symbols but as people.
About the author
Edward W. Said (1935–2003) was a Jerusalem-born literary scholar at Columbia University and the leading Palestinian voice in Western public life. Jean Mohr (1925–2018) was a Swiss documentary photographer long associated with humanitarian causes.
Details
- Originally published by Pantheon Books, New York, 1986
- Photographs by Jean Mohr