Barack Obama's memoir traces his search for identity as the son of a Kenyan father he barely knew and a white American mother, moving from a childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia to his early career as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side. Written years before he entered politics, the book grapples with questions of race, absence, and belonging in America. It closes with a journey to Kenya, where Obama meets his father's family and confronts the complicated truth behind the man he had spent a lifetime imagining.
Books mentioned in Dreams from My Father (1)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: “"I'm trying to tell Brother Barack here about this racist tract he's reading." He held up a copy of Heart of Darkness, evidence for the court.”
Books that mention Dreams from My Father (3)
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “"...the morning she picked up Barack Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, which Blaine had just finished and left lying on the bookshelf..." "She read Dreams from My Father in a day and a half, sitting up on the couch."”
Becoming by Michelle Obama: “Barack flew to Bali and spent about five weeks living alone with his thoughts while working on a draft of his book Dreams from My Father, filling yellow legal pads with his fastidious handwriting, distilling his ideas during languid daily walks amid the coconut palms and lapping tide.”
On James Baldwin by Colm Tóibín: “In Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama described finding religion in Chicago, hearing about the history of the Black church in America”