 With an unexceptionally Arab family name like " Saïd " , connected to an improbably British first name ( my mother much admired [ Edward VIII ] the Prince of Wales in 1935 , the year of my birth ) , I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years : a Palestinian going to school in Egypt , with an English first name , an American passport , and no certain identity , at all . To make matters worse , Arabic , my native language , and English , my school language , were inextricably mixed : I have never known which was my first language , and have felt fully at home in neither , although I dream in both . Every time I speak an English sentence , I find myself echoing it in Arabic , and vice versa . 
