
Former President Barack Obama has announced the release of the first volume of his highly-anticipated presidential memoirs.
Titled A Promised Land, the memoir will recount Obama’s first term in the White House and address how he thinks the nation can “heal our divisions.” It will be released just two weeks after Election Day on November 17.
“There’s no feeling like finishing a book, and I’m proud of this one,” Obama tweeted Thursday morning. “In A Promised Land, I try to provide an honest accounting of my presidency, the forces we grapple with as a nation, and how we can heal our divisions and make democracy work for everybody.”
The first volume of two presidential memoirs from Obama will take readers from his early political career up through his first years in the Oval Office. It will cover his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his efforts to pass the Affordable Care Act, and the response to Deepwater Horizon. It concludes with the successful operation to kill Osama bin Laden.
Published by Crown Publishing, the print edition of A Promised Land will be simultaneously issued in 25 languages with the English-language edition coming in at 768-pages with two 16-page photographic inserts.
Obama will also narrate an audio version of the book.
A publication date for the second and final volume of the memoirs has not been determined.
This is Obama’s first book since leaving the White House and the fourth he has written. His previous titles are Dreams from My Father, published in 2005; The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006; and a children’s book Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, published in 2010.
Former first lady Michelle Obama‘s memoir, Becoming, published in 2018, sold 1.4 million copies in the first week and instantly topped best seller lists.
By Libby Cathey and Candice Williams
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.