Penguin Random House imprint Crown will publish Barack Obama’s new memoir two weeks after the presidential election, the New York Times reports.
A Promised Land will be the first of two planned memoirs from the former president, and seems almost certain to be a big hit for the publisher, just as Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, was two years ago. Her book also was published less than a month after a national election.
On a webpage for the book, Crown describes the memoir as a “riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy.”
The memoir spans the years from “his earliest political aspirations” to “Operation Neptune’s Spear, which [led] to the death of Osama bin Laden,” the publisher said.
Crown seems certain of the book’s success and is printing 3 million copies of the book, one third of those from printers in Germany, the Times reports. It will be released in 25 different languages, a sign that they expect it to be a global bestseller.
“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,” Obama said.
A Promised Land is slated for publication on Nov. 17.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
