Barack Obama Just Announced His New Memoir—And It's Coming Sooner Than We Thought

Melissa Goldberg
·3 min read
Barack Obama Just Announced His New Memoir—And It's Coming Sooner Than We Thought

From Oprah Magazine

  • Early this morning, former President Barack Obama announced that his long-awaited presidential memoir, A Promised Land, will be available November 17.

  • The first of two volumes, the new book will encompass Obama's life leading up to and through the first term of his presidency.

Mark your calendars! On November 17, Barack Obama will release his highly-anticipated presidential memoir, A Promised Land.

The 768-page book, which the former President started working on shortly after leaving the Oval Office, will be the first of two volumes. It will cover his earliest political aspirations, his historic 2008 presidential campaign, and some of the defining moments from his first few years in the White House, including the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

“There’s no feeling like finishing a book, and I’m proud of this one,” he said in a statement announcing the new title. “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.”

{{ this.render( "@app/views/shared/embed-accessibility-text.twig", { embedName: "Twitter", })|raw}}

{% verbatim %}

{% endverbatim %}

Just like former first lady Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming, Mr. Obama's book will offer a deeply candid, intimate look behind the scenes. “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,” the 44th President said. "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.”

While the former FLOTUS released her book in November 2018—which went on to become one of the best-selling autobiographies ever—A Promised Land took longer to complete. That’s likely, in part, because of the former POTUS’s meticulous process. As he did many of his White House speeches and his 2004 bestseller, Dreams From My Father, Mr. Obama hand-wrote the first draft on legal pads, according to AP News.

Just as the he did with his first two books—he also released The Audacity of Hope in 2007—Mr. Obama will narrate an audio version.

For more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter.

You Might Also Like