num_pages: 403
description: From Publishers WeeklyElected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama was offered a book contract, but the intellectual journey he planned to recount became instead this poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. So Obama's not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a lonely voyage to racial identity, tensions in school, struggling with black literature?with one month-long visit when he was 10 from his commanding father. After college, Obama became a community organizer in Chicago. He slowly found place and purpose among folks of similar hue but different memory, winning enough small victories to commit himself to the work?he's now a civil rights lawyer there. Before going to law school, he finally visited Kenya; with his father dead, he still confronted obligation and loss, and found wellsprings of love and attachment. Obama leaves some lingering questions?his mother is virtually absent?but still has written a resonant book. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
language: English
title: Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
titlecomplete: Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
characters: Barack Obama
genres: Biography, Politics, Memoir, Nonfiction, Autobiography, History, Biography Memoir, Race, Audiobook, African American
ratings_count: 222925
awards: awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: British Book Award
category: The Best Biography, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Grammy Award
category: Best Spoken Word Album
publisher: Times Books/Random House, Inc.