By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — An Italian publisher has announced the global release in January of “Hope,” a book it described as Pope Francis’ autobiography, which the pope apparently planned to have released only after his death.
Mondadori, the Italian publisher coordinating the global release, announced the publication Oct. 16 at the Frankfurt Book Fair and said it would be released in 80 countries Jan. 14.
Viking, an imprint of Penguin General, will publish “Hope” in the United Kingdom. Random House will publish it in the U.S.
Mondadori said Pope Francis began working on the book with Italian editor Carlo Musso in 2019 with the understanding it would be published after his death, but the Holy Year 2025 and its focus on hope led him to permit the early release of “this precious legacy.”
“With a wealth of revelations and unpublished stories, moving and very human … Pope Francis’ memoir starts off in the early years of the 20th century with the story of his Italian roots and his ancestors’ adventure of emigration to Latin America, moving on to his childhood, adolescence, choice of vocation, adult life, covering the whole of his papacy up to the present day,” said a press release from Viking.
“Pope Francis deals unsparingly with some of the crucial moments of his papacy,” Viking said.