As the British Best Biography prize goes to Barak Obama for his book: "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance", Kalima has revealed their latest release; The Arabic translation for Barak's own biography. The 44th President of the United States of America takes us back to the roots of his story, when his father arrived to the States at 1959 to enroll at the University of Hawaii to be the first African student at that university. That is where he met a shy white American girl who hadn't turned eighteen then, and with whom he had a romance that ended with them getting married and giving birth to the author of this book.
Why is this book important? The importance of this book is not that it has been written by the American President, but that it tells the story of a very special journey of a boy searching for his lost father, a young man seeking the future of his beloved country, and a lawyer attempting to achieve justice outside the courtrooms throughout the United States.
Some autobiographers try to use their autobiographies to whitewash their past and glorify their present. But this book didn't try to do so as the author moves us from one chapter to another describing his life in great detail: his life as a child in Hawaii, his memories and adventures - even his boyhood naughtiness - in Indonesia, and his romantic life and feelings that he describes in vivid words. He then states his insights about the status of blacks in America, and his attempts to look deep inside their souls and expose to the world the wounds of racism that have not yet been healed. He had been an excellent doctor throughout trying to explore the origin of the disease in order to figure out the best treatment. In this book, he gives a glimmer of hope to the oppressed asserting the fact that if the oppressed insist on getting their rights, they will eventually prevail. He explains in simple language how he successfully led the people to finding a solution to the asbestos problem in their homes in spite of the officials' attempt to procrastinate at first. Obama admits in the book that he wasn't so clever a student in his schooldays. He even admits more than that; that man, who was for 12 years teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, admitted on the pages of this book that he had at times misbehaved. In short, he is a person who wanted his life to be an open book for all to read and be inspired by. Ironically, he became president of the US in whose hands lie the solutions to many of the world's problems.
Some might argue that he hasn't yet made any historic achievements like Lincoln, Truman, Roosevelt, or even Clinton. So why would we read about someone who is a newbie in the political world? To them we say this: that man who is currently sitting on the throne of the world's most powerful nation hasn't attained that position undeservedly. He has something inside that drives and protects him; that leads him and helps him lead others. Only those who will read his book will come to know what this 'something' is. Obama's story is not merely the story of a president; it's the story of the escape from the abyss of depression to the top of the world and from doubt to certainty. As for those former presidents, this is how life goes: one star fades away; another rises. And life goes on; life from which we learn new lessons day after day.
