Barack Obama memoir due two weeks after election

Barack Obama announces the publication after the November election of the first half of his memoirs, A Promised Land.

‘There’s no feeling like finishing a book’: Barack Obama. Picture: AFP

Former US president Barack Obama has announced the publication in November of the first half of his memoirs, A Promised Land — two weeks after the election pitting Donald Trump against Joe Biden.

Publisher Penguin Random House said the book would be ­released in 25 languages simultaneously on November 17.

“There’s no feeling like finishing a book, and I’m proud of this one,” Mr Obama tweeted late on Thursday.

“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.”

Mr Obama, America’s first black president, served two terms in the White House from January 2009 through January 2017, when he was succeeded by Mr Trump.

The book will reveal Obama’s thoughts during the global financial crisis and his take on Russian President Vladimir Putin, the statement from Penguin Random House said.

It will also revisit the 59-year-old Democrat president’s approval of a May 2011 raid in which al-Qa’ida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

A release date for the second volume has not been set, Penguin Random House said.

“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,” Mr Obama said.

“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.”

Mr Obama’s best known books are Dreams from My ­Father and The Audacity of Hope.

Michelle Obama’s book ­Becoming, released in November 2018, was a resounding success, with more than 11.5 million copies sold around the world.

AFP