Writing about my life did not come easily to me: Sonia on upcoming memoir

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, whose 544-page memoir will be published in November, has said writing about her life meant opening herself up and sharing experiences she had kept deep inside, as she reflected on the heartbreak and loss that drew her into politics.

"It was heartbreak and loss that threw me into the public world of politics.

Up till then I had guarded my privacy fiercely," Gandhi said in a statement issued here on Tuesday by publisher Alfred A Knopf.

"Writing about my life did not come easily to me.

It meant opening myself up, sharing moments and experiences I had always held deep inside," the senior Congress leader said.

Titled 'Belonging: A Journey of Love', the memoir will be released in hardcover and ebook by Knopf on November 10, with an audio edition to be published by Penguin Random House.

The publisher said an announced first printing of 100,000 copies has been set.

Gandhi described the book as a "testament of my heart's journey through the tender joys and dark