Description: 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.

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Reviews: "Provocative . . . Persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither." --New York Times Book Review

"Fluidly, calmly, insightfully, Obama guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race." --Washington Post Book World

"Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid . . . this book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride's The Color of Water and Gregory Howard Williams's Life On the Color Lineas a tale of living astride America's racial categories" --Scott Turow