NEW DELHI: Penguin Random House India on Friday clarified that it is not the publisher of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love in India.The Publishing house rejected reports that it decided against publishing the book because the author declined editorial changes.In a statement posted on X, the publishing house said it had remained “willing and keen to publish” the memoir and stressed that fact-checking and providing editorial recommendations are a normal part of the publishing process.“In response to the news reports about Sonia Gandhi’s book ‘Belonging’,Penguin Random House India is not the publisher of ‘Belonging’ in India. Any suggestion that Penguin Random House India decided not to publish ‘Belonging’ because the author declined editorial changes does not accurately reflect the circumstances.As a publisher, it is both our prerogative and our responsibility to fact check and provide authors with recommendations that are in the best interests of their books. This is a normal part of the publishing process. Throughout the relevant discussions, Penguin Random House India’s position was that we remained willing and keen to publish the book.We will not comment further on confidential discussions with the author.”The clarification comes weeks after US publisher Alfred A Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House, announced that Belonging would be released on November 10.The status of the memoir’s publisher or distributor in India remains unclear. An e-commerce listing has shown an ebook edition of Belonging available for pre-order at Rs 2,615, with William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins UK, listed as its publisher.
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Sonia Gandhi, 79, is expected to offer a personal account of her life, including her childhood in post-war Italy, her marriage into the Nehru-Gandhi family and the death of her husband Rajiv Gandhi, according to Alfred A Knopf.The memoir will also cover her entry into the “public world of politics” following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and her decision to turn down the prime minister’s post in 2004.The publisher had earlier described the book as tracing Sonia Gandhi’s life “from her childhood in post-war Italy, to the romance that brings her to India, to the shattering losses that will reshape not only her own future but also that of her adopted home”.Sonia Gandhi has rarely discussed her private life at length in public, making the memoir one of the most closely watched political books ahead of its release.
