Synopsis
When Barack Obama learns of the death of his African father, whom he hardly knew, he is compelled to trace his unusual family history. Obama, who became a nationally known figure in 2004 when he gave the keynote address at the Democratic Convention, writes movingly about being raised in Hawaii by his white mother. He goes on to describe his years at Harvard (where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review), his illuminating visit to family members in Kenya, and his work as a community activist in Chicago, where he eventually entered Illinois politics.
When Barack Obama learns of the death of his African father, whom he hardly knew, he is compelled to trace his unusual family history. Obama, who became a nationally known figure in 2004 when he gave the keynote address at the Democratic Convention, writes movingly about being raised in Hawaii by his white mother. He goes on to describe his years at Harvard (where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review), his illuminating visit to family members in Kenya, and his work as a community activist in Chicago, where he eventually entered Illinois politics. While the book ends there, the rest is history. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as President of the United States of America.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2004-08-31 | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Length: | 448 pages | | Height: | 7.8 in | | Width: | 5.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 12.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.
Industry Reviews
"Barack Obama is never flip or hip. Fluidly, calmly, insightfully, he guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, family, class and race."
Washington Post Book World - Paul Ruffins (08/20/1995)
"One of the most powerful books of self-discovery I've ever read. Paced like a good novel."
press materials - Charlayne Hunter-Gault
"An exquisite, sensitive study of this wonderful young author's journey into adulthood. Perceptive and wise, this book will tell you something about yourself whether you are black or white."
press materials - Marian Wright Edelman
"All men live in the shadow of their fathers--the more distant the father, the deeper the shadow. Barack Obama describes his confrontation with this shadow in his provocative autobiography. DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, and he also persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither."
New York Times Book Review - Paul Watkins (08/06/1995)
"In DREAMS FROM MY FATHER Barack Obama takes us on a probing journey in a search for the truths about family and race. Obama's writing is incisive and yet forgiving. It's a book worth savoring."
Alex Kotlowitz
"We learn in Barack Obama's soaring book that survival demands resilience in the face of frustrated expectations, and that one's committed opposition to America's obsession with color cultivates a vision of life that is nourished by struggle."
press materials - Derrick Bell
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Dream From My Father by Barack Obama
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