News / Politics
David Olusoga to interview Barack Obama
David Olusoga has secured an exclusive UK broadcast interview with Barack Obama ahead of the release of the former US president’s memoirs.
Due to be broadcast on Wednesday on BBC One, the 30-minute special will see the Bristol-based historian and broadcaster talk to Obama about the first volume of his presidential memoirs, A Promised Land.
He will speak about his motivations for writing the book and the challenges he faced confronting political, cultural and racial divisions in the US, as the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.
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Following the BBC One broadcast, the programme will be available as a podcast on BBC Sounds.
Olusoga said: “Meeting Barack Obama to discuss his memoirs is a great honour. To be interviewing him now – at the end of a year in which race and racism and the histories that lie behind them have been at the centre of global events – seems fitting.
“My interview with the former president will highlight the obstacles he faced as president and ask whether his optimism in what he calls the ‘possibility of America’ has been challenged in recent years.”
David Olusoga presented A House Through Time earlier this year which focused on a home on Guinea Street in Redcliffe – photo: BBC
Jonty Claypole, director of BBC Arts, added: “Having the opportunity to bring (Obama) face to face with David Olusoga, one of our foremost social historians and broadcasters, at the end of a year that has been defined by Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, and one of the most fiercely-fought American elections in history, promises to be deeply illuminating.”
Main photo: White House
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