Dreams from My Father-A Story of Race and Heritage

Nine years before the Senate campaign that made him the most influential and respected voice in the American Parliament, Barack Obama published his lyrical, unsentimental, and powerfully affecting memoirs, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller when republished in 2004 . Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama's attempt to understand how being the son of a black African-American father and a white American mother shaped him. This effort takes him from the heart of America to Alego, a small African village where his great-aunt lives.

Obama begins his story in New York, when he receives the news that his father, whom he knew as a legend rather than a human being, died in a car accident. This news triggers a series of memories and Barack gets to the bottom of his family's unusual past. His mother's family moved from a small town in Kansas to the Hawaiian Islands; The love that blossoms between his mother and a young Kenyan student, nourished by the innocence of youth and the integrationist spirit of the sixties; His father's departure from Hawaii when Barack was only 2 years old, as the realities of race and power reasserted themselves, and Barack's awakening to the fears and doubts not only between the black and white worlds, but within himself.

With a passion to understand the forces that shaped both his and his father's legacy, Barack moves to Chicago and begins working as a community organizer. There, against a backdrop of turbulent political and racial conflict, he tries to stem the city's growing despair. His story becomes a shared story with the people he works with, through the social values he has learned, the need to heal old wounds, and the possibilities of faith against difficulties.

Barack's journey concludes in Kenya, where he finally meets the African part of his family and confronts the harsh realities of his father's life. As Barack travels through a land of harsh poverty and tribal strife, among people who yet retain a spirit of hope and resilience, he discovers that he is inexorably tied to his sisters and brothers living an ocean away, and that only by embracing their shared struggle can he finally come to terms with his divided heritage.
A meditation on finding the meaning of American belonging, “Dreams from My Father” may be the most meaningful portrait of a great American leader. A portrait of a man who has played and is increasingly involved in the healing of a broken and divided nation.

(From the Promotional Bulletin)

Dough Type: 2nd Dough

Size: 13.5 x 21

First Printing Year: 2019

Number of Printings: 1st Printing