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. Pictured in lefthand photograph on cover: Habiba Akumu Hussein and Barack Obama, Sr. (President Obama's paternal grandmother and his father as a young boy). Pictured in righthand photograph on cover: Stanley Dunham and Ann Dunham (President Obama's maternal grandfather and his mother as a young girl).

在这部抒情的、不伤感的、引人注目的回忆录中，非洲黑人父亲和美国白人母亲的儿子在寻找他作为美国黑人生活的可行意义。故事开始于纽约，巴拉克-奥巴马在那里得知他的父亲--他更多地是作为一个神话而不是作为一个人--在一场车祸中丧生。这一突然的死亡激发了他的情感之旅--首先是去堪萨斯州的一个小镇，从那里他追溯了他母亲的家庭迁移到夏威夷的过程，然后是去肯尼亚，在那里他见到了他家庭中的非洲人，面对他父亲生活中痛苦的事实，并最终调和了他分裂的继承权。图为封面上左手边的照片。哈比巴-阿库穆-侯赛因和老巴拉克-奥巴马。(奥巴马总统的外祖母和他父亲年幼时的样子）。图为封面上的右方照片。斯坦利-德纳姆和安-德纳姆（奥巴马总统的外祖父和他母亲年轻时的样子）。