Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has a memoir coming out this November in which she will reflect on the promise and the tragedy of marrying into India’s Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty and on her own career in government.
“In many ways, this book is a homage to their humanness. My story also offers readers a unique perspective of the social and political changes I have witnessed for six decades in the beautiful country of my belonging.” Alfred A Knopf announced Tuesday that Gandhi’s Belonging: A Journey of Love will be published November 10.
“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 very human failings,” Sonia Gandhi said in a statement issued through Knopf.
She too would eventually enter politics and become the longest-serving president of the Congress party while also turning down her party’s offer to become PM. “It was heartbreak and loss that threw me into the public world of politics. “Writing about my life did not come easily to me. “Yet as I gradually removed myself from the political sphere and looked back at all I had seen, the thread of love and loyalty that wove through my story began to define itself, from the simplicity of my childhood in small-town Italy, to the complexity of my years in India as the wife of Rajiv Gandhi and the daughter-in-law of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It also explains why she chose not to become prime minister after the Congress selected her for the post.
In the memoir, she writes of her life being upended when her mother-in-law and PM Indira Gandhi is assassinated in 1984 and succeeded by Rajiv Gandhi, who seven years later was also murdered. Earlier reporting noted: Published by Penguin and to be released on November 10, the 544-page book covers her childhood, her years in England, her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi and her decades in public life.
Up till then I had guarded my privacy fiercely,” she said in her statement. It meant opening myself up, sharing moments and experiences I had always held deep inside,” she said. Earlier reporting noted: What Sonia Gandhi traces in her memoir ‘Belonging’: Italy childhood, Rajiv Gandhi love story and why she said not to PM post New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi’s autobiography ‘Belonging’ will trace a journey that began in Italy, took her to Cambridge, brought her into the Nehru-Gandhi family and eventually led her into a long political career in India.
Earlier reporting noted: ALSO READ: Vande Mataram row grows after Congress HQ video, BJP seeks action against Sonia Gandhi
