Penguin Random House India (PRHI) will not be publishing Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love in India after she rejected the “editorial changes and deletions” in the manuscript.
“Penguin Random House India is not the publisher of Belonging in India. Any suggestion that Penguin Random House India decided not to publish Belonging because the author declined editorial changes does not accurately reflect the circumstances,” the company said in a statement.
“As a publisher, it is both our prerogative and our responsibility to fact check and provide authors with recommendations that are in the best interests of their books. This is a normal part of the publishing process,” the statement said.
“Throughout the relevant discussions, Penguin Random House India’s position was that we remained willing and keen to publish the book. We will not comment further on confidential discussions with the author,” the statement added.
With PRHI not publishing the book, reports are emerging that Harper Collins may now be publishing it in India. The book is scheduled to be released on November 10, with its publication first to be announced by US-based Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House. However, PRHI has not confirmed its release date yet.
“Much has been written about my family, but few narratives were able to reach into the truth of their motivations, their actions, and even their very human failings,” Sonia Gandhi said in a statement issued through Knopf.
Alfred A. Knopf announced the date, November 10, 2026, in a “cover reveal” earlier this week.
In her book, Sonia Gandhi writes about her life being turned upside down following the assassination of her mother-in-law in 1984. It highlights her childhood in Italy; her time studying in Cambridge; how she met and fell in love with Rajiv Gandhi in 1965; and about the death of Rajiv Gandhi.
Penguin Random House has described it as “a surprising memoir that tells a riveting personal and political story of love, family, and an endlessly fascinating country: India.”
“In Sonia’s vivid, wrenching retelling, we feel the full force of the tragedy when seven years later Rajiv, too, while on his campaign trail, is assassinated by a suicide bomber,” Penguin Random House said.
“Writing about my life did not come easily to me. It meant opening myself up, sharing moments and experiences I had always held deep inside,” Sonia Gandhi said.
“Yet as I gradually removed myself from the political sphere and looked back at all I had seen, the thread of love and loyalty that wove through my story began to define itself, from the simplicity of my childhood in small-town Italy to the complexity of my years in India as the wife of Rajiv Gandhi and the daughter-in-law of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,” she added.
