Political Autobiography and Race: The Case of Barack Obama

This article analyses how Barack Obama employs the concept of race in his three autobiographical books. Even though they complement each other chronologically, these are three very different works. Dreams from My Father (1995) is semi-fictional and shares similarities with African American versions of the Bildungsroman and autofiction. The Audacity of Hope (2006) is a campaign book downplaying race. A Promised Land (2020) is a presidential memoir warning of impending democratic crisis. In each of these works, Obama puts the concept of race to use in very different ways, with genre playing an important part in the process.