Obama's half-brother in China to launch new book on family secrets
Shenzhen-based consultant says autobiography, for February release, will shed more light on domestic abuse in family and his frosty relationship with the US president
US President Barack Obama’s half-brother is publishing an autobiography that details the domestic abuse that served as the theme for his earlier semi-autobiographical novel, which featured an abusive parent patterned on their late father.
Mark Obama Ndesandjo also recounts his sporadic but intense encounters with his brother over the years in Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery.
The book comes four years after his novel, Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Novel of Love in the East. As in his first book, Ndesandjo wanted to raise awareness of domestic abuse by using his family’s story, although he said the president’s relatives have not universally welcomed his airing of private matters in public.
Ndesandjo spoke on Thursday in Guangzhou ahead of a news conference to launch the book.
The self-published book, to be officially released in February, also tries to set the record straight on some points in the president’s bestselling 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father.
In that book, Obama seeks to learn more about their father, a mostly absent figure, after learning of his death in a car crash in 1982 at age 46.