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Last week, HarperCollins scored a goal over Penguin Random House India (PRHI) by announcing that it would publish Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, this November.
Why, you may ask, is this such a big deal when there are so many political memoirs being published almost every week? For one, Gandhi has had a remarkable life. She left her village in Italy to marry into the most exalted political family in India. She lived through the assassinations of both her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, and her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, and yet brought up her two children — Rahul and Priyanka — in the cradle of Indian politics. She resisted politics for a long time and then finally entered it only to, years later, decline prime ministership. She wielded as much authority as the chosen Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, during the UPA years. She not only brought the Congress out of its doldrums in two successive elections, but has since remained the matriarch of the grand old party, her shadow always looming large over its decisions even now even as she herself has retreated from the spotlight.
