Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama was only two years old when his father walked out on the family. Many years later, Obama receives a phone call from Nairobi: his father is dead. This sudden news inspires an emotional odyssey for Obama, determined to learn the truth of his father's life and reconcile his divided inheritance. Written at the age of thirty-three, Dreams from My Father is an unforgettable read. It illuminates not only Obama's journey, but also our universal desire to understand our history, and what makes us the people we are.

About the Author :
Barack Obama is the President of the United States and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

Review :
A remarkable story, beautifully told. Whatever else people expect from a politician, it's not usually a beautifully written personal memoir steeped in honesty. Barack Obama has produced one. Obama's writing is characterised throughout by a graceful eloquence, a generosity of perception and spirit rare in young men of many gifts and charisma...here is a testimony for the ages. It is an almost illicit pleasure to be reading the unspun memories of a man who may yet become president of the US. This book is simply justified, whatever its long-term political significance may or may not be, as a rich and rewarding read ...it is a well-written account of Obama's struggle to establish his own views on identity and race, and all the more entertaining for its honesty. With its honesty and cool language, and by virtue of having a story worth telling, the book impresses far more than the typical political memoir. Obama has written a memoir . . . that evokes the anguish of miscegenation yet culminates in a cry of faith in human community . . . Obama is a born narrator, with a mastery of colour, scene and personality, deftly stirring them into the melting pot of a shared American identity. Rarely has that identity found so vivid a portraitist. Because he held to the good and transcended the bad, in Obama's genesis millions of us will find hope . . . his search to know and forgive his absent Kenyan father holds lessons for us all. Especially in relative terms, his clear prose is refreshing. The only politician's life I have read that made me cry . . . elegant and surprising prose as well as a solid personal statement. It's touching, revealing, brave and generous . . . unprecedentedly well written for any politician.