Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism. She first became known internationally for No Logo (1999); The Take, a documentary film about Argentina’s occupied factories that was written by Klein and directed by her husband Avi Lewis; and The Shock Doctrine (2007), a critical analysis of the history of neoliberal economics.
In 2016, she delivered the 2016 Edward Said London lecture, of which an adapted version and podcast can be seen in the London Review of Books.
Klein shows a warm admiration for Said and his people, weaving memories of her own childhood into the story of her Jewish faith and maturing awareness of humanity’s cruelty and injustice. Her opening lines gild no lily, foreshadowing the remarkable and detailed analysis to follow :
“Edward Said was no tree-hugger. Descended from traders, artisans and professionals, he once described himself as ‘an extreme case of an urban Palestinian whose relationship to the land is basically metaphorical’.”
Naomi Klein was awarded the 2016 Sydney Peace Prize, a title administered by a Foundation of the University of Sydney and funded by a $50,000 grant from the Council of the City of Sydney.