Sonia Gandhi Memoir: Penguin India Drops Book After She Rejects Changes

Penguin Random House India (PRHI) will not publish Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s memoir Belonging: a Journey of Love in India after the publisher sought “editorial changes and deletions” to part of the manuscript, proposals that Gandhi rejected.

With PRHI no longer publishing the book, several Indian publishers are reportedly competing for the rights. HarperCollins is reportedly close to finalising an agreement to publish and distribute the memoir in India.

The book is scheduled to be released on November 10. Its publication was first announced by US-based Alfred A Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, which said the first print run would be 100,000 copies.

According to Indian Express, the disagreement arose over changes and deletions that Penguin Random House India wanted to make to “a part of the manuscript”. Gandhi rejected the proposed changes, leading to PRHI’s decision not to publish the memoir in India.

The Indian Express sent questions to Knopf and Gandhi’s agent, David Godwin, but both were unavailable for comment. PRHI CEO Gaurav Shrinagesh was also asked about the requested “changes/deletions” in Gandhi’s manuscript but was unavailable for comment.

Sonia Gandhi has previously authored and edited books. People who have worked on the memoir, however, have described it as her most personal and definitive account of her life.

Knopf has described the book as a “riveting memoir by one of the world’s most prominent women leaders that tells a richly engaging story of love, family, and an endlessly fascinating country: India.”

In the publisher’s release, Gandhi said: “Much has been written about my family, but few narratives were able to reach into the truth of their motivations, their actions and even their human failings…My story also offers readers a unique perspective of the social and political changes I have witnessed for six decades.”

Earlier this year, PRHI had issued a statement that it had “not printed” former Army Chief General M M Naravane’s memoir, Four Stars of Destiny, although Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had flashed a hard copy of the book in Parliament. Excerpts from the memoir, including Naravane’s account of the India-China clashes in Galwan and the Agnipath scheme, had also been extracted in the media.

In June this year, Indian Express had first reported that PRHI had pulled the plug on acclaimed graphic novelist Joe Sacco’s book on the Muzaffarnagar riots, The Once and Future Riot.

At the time, Shrinagesh said the publisher had raised “some content issues” with Sacco during the legal scrutiny process. These included a map showing inaccurate boundaries of India.