Vanessa Obioha
Former president of the United States, Barack Obama, will publish his new memoir ‘A Promised Land’ in 25 languages including Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and Vietnamese.
His publisher, Penguin Random House, announced the development recently, adding that the 768-page book will be published shortly after the anticipated US presidential election in November.
‘A Promised Land’ comes in two volumes. The first account which is slated for November 17 will capture Obama’s early political adventures, his presidential campaign and the death of the infamous Saudi Arabian terrorist Osama bin Laden.
In a statement, the first black president of the US said he started writing the book shortly after leaving office and completed it this summer.
“There’s no feeling like finishing a book, and I’m proud of this one. I’ve spent the last few years reflecting on my presidency, and in ‘A Promised Land’, I’ve tried to provide an honest accounting of my presidential campaign and my time in office: the key events and people who shaped it, my take on what I got right and the mistakes I made, and the political, economic, and cultural forces that my team and I had to confront then — and that as a nation we are grappling with still.”
The Obamas who sold their memoirs to Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, got paid an incredible sum of $65 million as a package deal. Crown expects the demand for the book to skyrocket, therefore, it has ordered for three million copies for the first print.
About one million of these ordered copies will be printed in Germany and brought to the US through three ships outfitted with 112 shipping containers.
This won’t be Obama’s first time as an author. In 1995, he wrote his first book, ‘Dreams from My Father’. The book was published by Peter Osnos at Times Books.