Sonia Gandhi says her memoir 'Belonging' is personal, not political

Sonia Gandhi has a clear message ahead of her book launch: don't expect a political memoir. Belonging: A Journey of Love is, in her words, "a personal one".

The book, published by HarperCollins India, goes on sale in India on 10 November.

What did she say?

Gandhi, who chairs the Congress Parliamentary Party (the party's group of MPs), explained her reasons in a piece published ahead of the release. She said she had kept her private thoughts to herself for most of her life. Even when grief pulled her into politics, she tried to protect her privacy.

It was only after stepping back from the "daily churn of public life" that she could see her own story clearly, she said.

"Much has been written about my family, but rarely with real insight into who they were, their motivations, their struggles, their very human flaws. I wanted to portray them honestly, as people I knew and loved," she said.

A story built around love

Looking back, Gandhi said love, and the loyalty that comes with it, were the defining themes of her life. "It all began in England, where a 19-year-old woman from a small Italian town met a young Indian student," she wrote.

That love took her to a new country and a new family. It also brought a deep bond with her mother-in-law and the years of raising her children.

It carried her through the unbearable too, she said, when she lost first her mother-in-law and then her husband to violence. What remained was her love for her husband and for India, where she felt she truly belonged. A sense of duty then led her into public life, "against every instinct" she had.

The memoir covers some of the family's darkest moments: Sanjay Gandhi's death in a plane crash, the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and that of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

Some background

Rajiv Gandhi, a former prime minister, was killed in a suicide bombing at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, on 21 May 1991. Sonia Gandhi later entered politics. In March 1998 she became president of the Indian National Congress and led the party for many years.

She says the book also reflects what she witnessed over more than five decades in India. "I watched a country transform, at first from the margins and later from its very centre," she said. In her words, it is her account of that journey and of "the place I came to call home".