Published Sep 04, 2026 | 4:25 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 04, 2026 | 5:10 PM
HarperCollins India announced that the memoir, Belonging, will hit the stands on 10 November.
Synopsis: HarperCollins India announced that it will publish Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, after Penguin Random House India withdrew from its publication, saying the author declined to make editorial changes. The book will be published in India on 10 November.
Publishing house HarperCollins India will publish former AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, after Penguin Random House India (PRHI) withdrew from its publication.
“The long-awaited memoir will be published in India on 10 November 2026,” HarperCollins India announced on X on Friday, 4 September.
The New York- and London-headquartered publishing behemoth described the memoir as “One of the most anticipated political memoirs of our time, Belonging is a dramatic and deeply personal story of love, identity, duty and belonging, and offers a rare insider’s view of India’s journey.”
PRHI refused to publish the memoir in India following disagreements over proposed editorial changes to parts of the manuscript.
“Any suggestion that Penguin Random House India decided not to publish Belonging because the author declined editorial changes does not accurately reflect the circumstances,” PHRI said on 28 August.
Alfred A Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Publishers, was scheduled to publish the memoir on 10 November.
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After PRHI refused to publish the memoir in India, the Congress party questioned why the same justification was not applicable to Penguin Books’ global release.
“If Penguin Books worldwide can publish, then Penguin’s claim of ‘fact-checking’ is ridiculous,” a Congress spokesperson said. The Congress also accused the ruling dispensation at the Centre of arm-twisting PRHI into refusing to publish the memoir.
According to available information, Belonging: A Journey of Love traces Sonia’s journey from her childhood in post-war Italy to her move to India and marriage to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The book is also expected to cover major incidents in the Gandhi family, including the tragic deaths of Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi, while chronicling her journey into public life.
Earlier, Sonia said that the memoir would provide a truthful narrative of her family, and offer her perspective of the social and political changes in the past six decades.
HarperCollins provided a sneak peek into the memoir.
“A surprising, richly told memoir that seamlessly weaves the personal with the political to tell a riveting story: Of love, of family, and of an endlessly fascinating country, India.
How did a girl from a small village in Italy rise as a politician in India and become known around the world?
Belonging begins in Cambridge, England, where in 1965 Sonia Maino, a nineteen-year-old student, falls in love at first sight with the handsome, dark-eyed young man she’s destined to marry: Rajiv Gandhi, grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister.
In this book, the once famously reticent Sonia Gandhi opens up with warmth and candour to tell the story of her remarkable life, from her childhood in post-war Veneto; to the romance that brings her to India; to the shattering losses that will reshape not only her own future but also that of her adopted home.
We witness Sonia’s introduction to her formidable mother-in-law, Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, India’s first female Prime Minister. We see Sonia gain confidence by Rajiv’s side, as she adjusts to the sounds and sights of her new home – learning to speak Hindi, to wear saris, to relish spicy cuisine.
Rajiv Gandhi begins work as a commercial airline pilot, and they raise their two children in the Prime Minister’s house in Delhi. But everything changes when Rajiv’s brother, Sanjay, also a pilot, is killed in a crash, and when, in 1984, Indira Gandhi is brutally assassinated by her security guards in the garden of her home. In the wake of his mother’s death, and despite Sonia’s fears, Rajiv steps into the role of Prime Minister. The couple travel across India and the world. Then, through Sonia’s wrenching retelling, we feel the full force of the tragedy when seven years later Rajiv, too, is assassinated, by a suicide bomber while on the campaign trail.
Brushing aside the advice of her Italian family to return, Sonia heeds the call within her to stay in India. She is drawn into politics, becoming the longest-serving president of the Indian National Congress. We see how, though once regarded as a foreign-born outsider, she comes to earn the trust and affection of millions. Yet when after a key election, the Congress Party selects her to become Prime Minister, she makes a rare decision – declining her country’s highest office, choosing instead to lead her Party in an alliance that will govern India for a decade.
This dramatic account, at once epic and intimate, gives readers a unique lens on India – its tumultuous post-independence history and its present political struggles – offering an insider’s keen perspective on the country’s enormous political, economic and social changes over fifty years. Movingly, the book goes behind the scenes of a renowned political family. Most revelatory of all is the portrait of Sonia herself as she invites readers into her private joys and travails, as well as the people and events that shaped her. In a voice at once perceptive and modest, she shares her insights into identity, duty, and the meaning of home. Belonging is at heart one courageous woman’s story of falling in love with a man and a country, of finding the strength to remake her life and to serve India, the place where she belongs.”
