Washington, November 04: President Barack Obama’s half brother has broken silence to launch his novel on a painful childhood with an abusive father.
Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo made a rare appearance on Wednesday in southern China to unveil his novel, ‘Nairobi to Shenzhen’, the semi-autobiographical story of an abusive parent.
Barack Obama’s Kenyan father and American mother separated when he was two years old. Obama’s late father had Ndesandjo from his third wife, Ruth Nidesand.
Ndesandjo did not use the name ‘Obama’ and hid his connection with the president until it was reported in the media.
The book gave his full name ‘Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo’. Nevertheless, the name Obama does not lend itself to being used with his distressing past in mind.
“My father beat me. He beat my mother. You just do not do that. I remember in my house, I would hear the screams. I would hear my mum’s pain,” he recalled.
“As a child, I could not protect her,” he said as tears streamed down his face. “I could not remember any good things about my father. My skin had turned hard emotionally for so many years.”
Ndesandjo wrote the novel in part to raise awareness of domestic violence.
—–Agencies