‘A Promised Land’: Barack Obama Announces Release Date for Memoir

Former US President Barack Obama has announced the release date for his new book A Promised Land. According to his post on Instagram, Obama’s new memoir will be released in November 2020.

Obama, the first black president and husband of Michelle Obama; said the book would “try to provide an honest account of my presidency”. A Promised Land is set for release on 17 November, just two weeks after the US presidential election.

“There’s no feeling like finishing a book, and I’m proud of this one,” Mr Obama wrote on Twitter and Instagram.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 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. In the book, I’ve also tried to give readers a sense of the personal journey that Michelle and I went through during those years, with all the incredible highs and lows. And finally, at a time when America is going through such enormous upheaval, the book offers some of my broader thoughts on how we can heal the divisions in our country going forward and make our democracy work for everybody—a task that won’t depend on any single president, but on all of us as engaged citizens. Along with being a fun and informative read, I hope more than anything that the book inspires young people across the country—and around the globe—to take up the baton, lift up their voices, and play their part in remaking the world for the better.
 
A post shared by  Barack Obama (@barackobama) on Sep 17, 2020 at 5:00am PDT
 

The memoir is a heavy 768 pages and will be simultaneously issued in 25 languages, according to publisher Penguin Random House. A Promised Land is expected to sell so many copies that its publisher is printing one million of them in Germany and shipping them to the US.

A Promised Land’s first run is significantly higher compared to past presidential memoirs, which set records at the time of their publication.

Number of copies in first printing of US presidential memoirs

In A Promised Land, Obama writes about the response to the global financial crisis; his landmark healthcare reform legislation known as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, and the 2011 US raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

The 44th president of the US has written three previous books; including Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope as well as the children’s book Of Thee I Sing.

His wife, lawyer and former First Lady Michelle Obama has published her own memoir. Within five months of publication, Becoming had sold more than 10 million copies.

Obama may struggle to outshine his wife, but this would not be the first time spouses have bested presidents. Both Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford’s memoirs outsold their husbands’ works.