Obama's half-brother in China book launch

US President Barack Obama's half-brother made a rare appearance yesterday in southern China, his home for seven years, to launch a novel he says draws on his painful childhood under an abusive father.

After repeatedly shunning media attention since press reports emerged that he was living and working in China, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo's first major public appearance to launch his debut novel comes less than two weeks before the US President travels there for the first time.

While he says Nairobi to Shenzhen is a fictional account, it started nearly 10 years ago as an autobiography and "reflects many experiences in my own life as a child brought up in Kenya" including a troubled relationship with his father.