HarperCollins wins former PM’s memoirs
With the Conservatives trailing in the polls in the UK, HarperCollins has announced it is to publish the memoirs of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Unleashed will be published in the UK by William Collins on 10 October and in the US by Harper on 15 October.
The Conservatives are widely expected to lose the General Election on 4 July and the book will either lift spirits or sew further division in the party, with publication expected to tie-in with the election of a new leader.
William Collins publishing director Arabella Pike said: “Unlike most top politicians, Boris Johnson is also a writer. His book Unleashed is compulsively readable, stuffed to the brim with serious reflections on his time in office but written with his charismatic trademark wit, his vivid use of language and stories galore. We are delighted to be publishing this autumn.”
Johnson said: “I am honoured that HarperCollins is publishing my personal account of the huge realignment that took place in UK politics in the last 15 years—and what may lie ahead. So stand by for my thoughts on Britain’s future to explode over the publishing world like a much-shaken bottle of champagne.”
HarperCollins acquired world all-language rights from Natasha Fairweather at RCW in January last year. Foreign rights have so far sold in France, Ukraine and the Netherlands.
The publisher describes Unleashed as an honest, unrestrained and deeply revealing book by the politician who has dominated our times, “written in his inimitable style and shattering the mould of the modern prime ministerial memoir”.