My Fathers' Daughter: A Story of Family and Belonging [Hardcover]

Hannah Pool (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2009

What do you wear to meet your father for the first time?

In 2004, Hannah Pool knew more about next season's lipstick colors than she did about Africa: a beauty editor for The Guardian newspaper, she juggled lattes and cocktails, handbags and hangouts through her twenties just like any other beautiful, independent Londoner. Her white, English adoptive relatives were beloved to her and were all the family she needed.

Okay, if I treat it as a first date, then I'm on home turf. What image do I want to put across?...Classic, rather than trendy, and if my G-string doesn't pop out, I should be able to carry the whole thing off.

Contacted by relatives she didn't know she had, she decided to visit Eritrea, the war-torn African country of her birth, and answer for herself the daunting questions every adopted child asks.

Imagine what it's like to never have seen another woman or man from your own family. To spend your life looking for clues in the faces of strangers...We all need to know why we were given up.

What Hannah Pool learned on her journey forms a narrative of insight, wisdom, wit, and warmth beyond all expectations.

When I stepped off the plane in Asmara, I had no idea what lay ahead, or how those events would change me, and if I'd thought about it too hard I probably wouldn't have gotten farther than the baggage claim.

A story that will "send shivers down [your] spine," (The Bookseller), My Fathers' Daughter follows Hannah Pool's brave and heartbreaking return to Africa to meet the family she lost -- and the father she thought was dead.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Following her mother’s death in childbirth—and the erroneous notation of her father’s death as well—Pool was adopted by a white couple and transplanted from Eritrea. She eventually grew up in middle-class comfort in England, missing the hardships, deprivation, and war in Eritrea. But she also grew up with the fantasy of many adopted children of someday being reclaimed by the birth family, as well as the guilt of being curious about her birth family and seeming ungrateful of the adopted family. In Pool’s case, there were the additional layers of differences in race and nationality. Still, when a biological brother contacted her, she wavered for 10 years before returning the contact. At nearly 30 years old, Pool returned to Eritrea to meet her family and reconnect with the culture of her birth. In this exhilarating and very personal account, she chronicles the emotional roller coaster of overcoming her insecurities and finding the courage to go and meet her extended family and try to blend together the very different parts of her life. --Vanessa Bush

Review

"Remarkable...Pool's candor is striking...Her story is as much about an adopted child facing up to the challenge of tracing her biological family as it is about her search for African roots...[She gives] a sense of what it is like to be a young person of African descent who is unquestionably British." -- The Observer (U.K.)

"What a story. So vivid, honest and moving." -- Andrea Levy, author of Small Island

"In this beautifully honest book, Pool gives us a front-row view of how identity is built up, but also how it's dismantled...Simply engrossing." -- Time Out London

"Hannah Pool [is] a thoroughly engaging storyteller [who] offers us a different way of seeing...layered with subtleties. Although passages bring tears to the eyes, the sentiment is never pity. Rather awe -- at the depth of Hannah's experience, her courage in confronting it and her success, finally, in making sense of it all." -- The Sunday Times (London)

"Engaging and moving."' -- Mail on Sunday

"A moving story that sent shivers down my spine in its final moments. Hannah is an engaging raconteur, reporting her emotional highs and lows with insight and humor." -- The Bookseller

"[A] truly moving exploration of identity." -- Sunday Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416593691
• ISBN-13: 978-1416593690
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,260,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Father's Daughter: A Story of Family and Belonging, April 1, 2009

By 

SmallTownRead - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Fathers' Daughter: A Story of Family and Belonging (Hardcover)

Great read! Very insightful information about an african adult adoptee growing up in a predominantly white family and area. Very interesting to hear her inner thoughts and feelings as she returned to the country she was born in, and to meet with people who are her blood relatives. I highly recommend this book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Hannah Pool is Not a Jerk, July 15, 2010

By 

Dean A. Anderson (Healdsburg, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Fathers' Daughter: A Story of Family and Belonging (Hardcover)

"I was born a poor black child." That line always made me laugh when I heard Steve Martin say it on his LP "Let's Get Small". (I'll explain what an LP is later, kids, if you care.) He was such a WASPy guy (especially, for some odd reason, with his prematurely white hair.)
But I would think the line would some incongruous coming from the lips of Hannah Pool as well. Sure, she is black. But she is also British with the accompanying accent and she is a 30ish year old columnist for The Guardian. Her position of privilege makes the "poor" part of the phrase seem unlikely.
But when was born to a poor family (by our standards) in the
African nation of Eritrea. She was put in an orphanage and it was there that a British academic and his American wife adopted her. Her adopted parents were told that the girl they named Hannah was an orphan. But decades later, Hannah Pool received a letter from a brother in Eritrea. It was then she discovered she
was not an orphan. Though her mother had died in child birth, her father was still alive and anxious to see her again.
The book is the story of Pool's fascinating journey to meet and get to know the family she never knew she had.
Pool's skills as a journalist serve the story well as a Travel Log, introducing the reader to this small African nation with great beauty but that still suffers from a history of colonialism, poverty and war. She brings an interesting perspective on the nation's customs, a liberated woman in a place where women are expected to be demure and marriages are usually still arranged.
But the most interesting dynamic in the book is her interaction with her new found family. One of the great questions of her life is `Why was she put in an orphanage?' As she learns parts of the answer to that question, she finds herself jealous of those who were able to stay with their father. But she realizes that her brothers and sisters may well be jealous of the advantages
she has as growing up with the riches of the Western world.
Pool, an atheist, is uncomfortable with the constant praise and thanksgiving her family make to God for their reunion with her. She probably wouldn't be thrilled when I say that her book reminds of the longing every person that has ever lived has felt without a relationship with the Living God.
Romans 8:23 says, "Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." We all feel the need for more, for a parent that not only accepts us, but can fully understand us. God not only wants to adopt us, make us His own, but His knowledge of us is even more complete than any Earthly parent (by blood or law.)

5.0 out of 5 stars Was surprised at how much I loved it..., February 9, 2010

By 

Jack's Mama (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Fathers' Daughter: A Story of Family and Belonging (Hardcover)

I loved this book! I'm not sure what I was expecting...maybe I had low expectations?...but it was an engaging, entertaining and informative read. We are in the process of adopting a daughter from Ethiopia. I felt like I could have been reading my daughter's journal 30 years from now. I highly recommend it!