President Barack Obama’s half-brother is self-publishing an autobiography detailing the abuse his mother suffered at the hands of their father, the Associated Press reports. Mark Obama Ndesandjo is the son of Barack Obama Sr. and his third wife, Ruth Ndesandjo, a Jewish American woman.
The book, Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery, will also address Ndesandjo’s awkward encounters with his brother, who grew up to be president of the United States. According to the AP, the book, which is due to be released in February 2014, is an attempt to set the record straight about some of the things discussed in the president’s own memoir, Dreams of My Father. It will include an appendix listing alleged factual errors that were in Obama’s 1995 memoir.
"It's a correction. A lot of the stuff that Barack wrote is wrong in that book, and I can understand that because to me, for him the book was a tool for fashioning an identity, and he was using composites," Ndesandjo told the AP.
Ndesandjo acknowledges that his family was not pleased that he was making their business the subject of public scrutiny. He also said that he and the president are not currently on the best of terms.
“Right now [our relationship is] cold, and I think part of the reason is because of my writing. My writing has alienated some people in my family," he said. "I hope that my brother and I can really hug each other after he's president and we can be a family again."
Ndesandjo is 48 years old and lives in Shenzhen, China, with his wife.
Read more at the Associated Press.