The present son

The moving story of the African boy who, at birth, was given as a gift and went on to become a respected educator of delinquents in Europe

“I am a gift-child.

This means my mother gave me as a gift to another woman. Not that I was adopted. There were no documents, no administrative declaration. My mother simply offered me to a woman who wasn't fortunate enough to have a child and was unhappy about it.

This woman's name was Boli. She was one of my mother's father's three co-wives. [...] This happened in 1951, in Kita, a village 150 kilometers from Bamako, Mali.”

Kabouna Keita is not a child like other children. And when Boli falls ill, he has only one thought: to save the woman he considers his second mother. At five years old, he devises countless ways to earn money to buy her medicine; he starts by collecting cans of preserves, which he resells by weight, then glass bottles. Every day, the boy walks dozens of kilometers, carrying his bags.

Stubborn and courageous, he becomes a delivery boy, learns to read and write... and falls in love with America. At nineteen, Kabouna goes to New York and works odd jobs: washing dishes in Harlem, working as a seasonal worker in California... and returns to Mali five years later, with a nest egg and a thousand projects. He sets up his own business and marries Marie, the woman of his life. But he is once again overcome by the urge to travel. This time, he heads to France...

An autobiographical account, The Present Son is a wonderful testimony of love, courage and humanity.