Between The Pages
Bob Marley My Son - Cedella Marley Booker
By RT
Feb 23, 2005, 5:23pm

Mother of the Legend Robert Nesta Marley (Bob) has written a book about her son, incorporating the help of Anthony Winkler. The book entitled ‘Bob Marley My Son’, tells the definitive life story…gracefully told with a due since of pathos and also humor.

In this touching memoir (originally published in the U.K), the devoted mother of reggae icon Bob Marley born 1945 – 1980 recounts her son’s childhood and the years she spent with him during his rise to international stardom. Booker describes her poor rural upbringing in the parish of St. Anns in Jamaica, and her courtship with Bob’s father, a white man forty years her senior.

With remarkable candor, Booker shares her memories of Bob’s embrace of Rastafarianism and her own subsequent conversion; she speaks about the many women in his life, his relationships with his nine children, his use of ganja, his fame, and finally, the dramatic years in which he fought a losing battle with cancer.

Booker was with Marley throughout his life, and her memoir offers one of the most revealing portraits thus far of her renowned son. Cedella is a musician and composer in her own right; she has released several albums, including ‘Redemption Songs’, and ‘Smilin’ Island Of Song’. She resides in Miami, Florida, but makes frequent trips to Jamaica; the place she calls home.