A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother [Paperback]

TheNew York Timesbestseller-an unprecedented look into the life and character of the woman who raised a president.

Barack Obama has written extensively about his father but credited his mother for "what is best in me." Still, little is known about this fiercely independent, spirited woman who raised the man who became the first biracial president of the United States. This book is that story.

InA Singular Woman, award-winningNew York Timesreporter Janny Scott tells the story of this unique woman, Stanley Ann Dunham, who broke many of the rules of her time, and shows how her fierce example helped influence the future president-and can serve as an inspiration to us all.

“Even Obama knew that he had not his extraordinary mother justice. Janny Scott . . . does. She portrays Dunham as a feminist, an utterly independent spirit, a cultural anthropologies, and an international development officer who surely helped shape the internationalist, post-Vietnam-era world view of her son. Scott’s book is tirelessly researched, and the sections covering Dunham’s life in Indonesia especially are new and valuable to the accumulating biography of Obama’s extended global family.”—The New Yorker

“Janny Scott packs two and a half years of research into her bio of Stanley Ann Dunham, the quixotic anthropologist who raised a president.”—People

 “The restrained, straight-ahead focus—rather in the spirit, it turns out, of Dunham herself—pays off. By recovering Obama’s mother from obscurity,A Singular Womanadds in a meaningful way to an understanding of a singular president.”—Slate

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