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Sonia Gandhi says her memoir 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', out 10 November, will tell her side of the story
Sonia Gandhi has said her upcoming book will give her own account and that much written about her has been inaccurate. The memoir, 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', is due on 10 November from HarperCollins India, after Penguin Random House India withdrew over disagreements on editorial changes.
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4 min
Sonia Gandhi has said that her upcoming book will give her own account, and that much of what has been written about her has been inaccurate. The memoir, titled Belonging: A Journey of Love, is due in India on 10 November, published by HarperCollins India. The release has already been in the news because Penguin Random House India, which was to publish it, withdrew in a dispute over editorial changes.
What the book covers
The memoir begins with her childhood in post-war Italy and opens in Cambridge, England, in 1965, where she met Rajiv Gandhi. It describes her move to India, her life in the Prime Minister's house in Delhi, where the couple raised two children, and her adjustment to a new language, dress and food. It covers the losses in the family, including the death of Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash, the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by a suicide bomber while he was campaigning.
It also traces her entry into politics, her long tenure as president of the Congress and her decision to decline the post of Prime Minister while leading an alliance that governed for a decade. The publisher describes it as a candid and personal account and notes that she was once famously reticent in public. She chose to stay in India despite advice from her Italian family to return.
The publisher dispute
The book was first announced for publication on 10 November by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Penguin. In India it was to be brought out by Penguin Random House India, which withdrew. The company said it had disagreements over proposed editorial changes to parts of the manuscript. On 28 August it said that suggesting that the author declined editorial changes did not accurately reflect the circumstances.
The Congress questioned the explanation of fact-checking, since Penguin Books is publishing the memoir elsewhere in the world, and accused the Centre of pressuring the publisher. The Centre has not been reported to have commented in the sources available. HarperCollins India announced on 4 September that it would publish the book in India on the original date of 10 November.
What she has said
Sonia Gandhi has said that the memoir will give a truthful account of her family and of her view of social and political change over six decades. In remarks reported on Tuesday evening, she said that her upcoming book will show her side of the story and that much of what has been written about her has been inaccurate.
The book arrives at a time of political contest between the Congress and the government, and any account by a leader who stayed at the centre of her party for nearly two decades is read for what it says about decisions that shaped the period. Readers will look in particular for her account of 2004, when she declined to become Prime Minister after the Congress-led alliance won the general election, and of the years of coalition government that followed.
Memoirs by political figures are also read with caution. They give a version of events from the writer's point of view and are shaped by what she chooses to include, which is why her own remark that the book tells her side of the story will be taken at face value by supporters and tested by critics.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 28 August | Penguin Random House India says that saying the author declined editorial changes does not reflect the circumstances accurately |
| 4 September | HarperCollins India announces it will publish the book in India |
| 27 October | Sonia Gandhi says the book will give her side of the story |
| 10 November | Publication date |
The international edition is published by Alfred A. Knopf, and the publisher describes the book as running to about 544 pages. HarperCollins India is bringing out the Indian edition.
Her remarks came in the days before the release, when the book is already the subject of public debate. What the memoir finally says about the disputed passages, and whether the changes the earlier publisher wanted were made, will be known only when copies reach readers.
The India edition goes on sale on 10 November. A fuller assessment will be possible only after the book is out and its contents are public, and until then the descriptions come from the publishers and from her own statements.
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