Sawt Falasteen - Indian release of Sonia Gandhi memoir uncertain after publisher clarification

Penguin Random House India said on Friday that it is not the publisher in India of Sonia Gandhi's memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, and rejected reports that it had abandoned the book after the author declined editorial changes.

The company said it had remained willing to publish the memoir. It described fact-checking and editorial recommendations as standard responsibilities in the publishing process but declined to discuss confidential exchanges with the author.

The clarification leaves unresolved when the book will appear in India and which publisher will release the Indian edition.

The memoir traces Gandhi's childhood in post-war Italy, her relationship with Rajiv Gandhi and the personal losses that shaped her life in India. It recounts her meeting Rajiv while she was a 19-year-old student in Cambridge in 1965, their marriage on February 25, 1968, and the assassinations of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Sonia Gandhi, 79, is the longest-serving president of the Indian National Congress. Her son Rahul Gandhi, the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, publicly welcomed the memoir earlier in August on the 82nd anniversary of his father's birth.

Alfred A. Knopf announced on August 18 that the book would be published on November 10. Knopf is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group within Penguin Random House in the United States, whose parent company is Bertelsmann.

P.Tamimi--SF-PST