Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s memoirs will be published on November 26, the publisher, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, announced.
It comes nearly three years after the end of Merkel’s 16-year tenure and her thoughts will be spilled across some 700 pages.
The book, titled “Freedom. Memories 1954 — 2021,” will be published in over 30 countries, Kiepenheuer & Witsch said.
The book promises to offer “recollections and insights from her meetings and conversations with the world’s most powerful people,” often as the only woman in the room, while recounting “significant national, European and international turning points … how the decisions were made that shaped our times”.
The memoirs, whose hardback edition is priced at £35 or €42, will go on sale worldwide on 26 November, in time to catch the December holiday wave of book sales. The German audiobook will be read by the acclaimed actor Corinna Harfouch, who also grew up in the communist east.
In her memoirs, Merkel looks back “on her life in two German states — 35 years in East Germany (GDR), 35 years in reunified Germany,” the publisher said.
Merkel was born in Hamburg, northwestern Germany, in 1954 but moved with her family to the former GDR shortly afterward.
She co-wrote the book with her longtime office manager and political advisor, Beate Baumann.
“What is freedom for me? This question has occupied me my whole life,” Merkel said in a statement after the announcement.
Freedom is “not to stop learning, not to have to stand still, but to be allowed to go further, even after leaving politics,” she said.
The memoirs come as Merkel maintains a relatively low profile since leaving office.
She has since stayed out of the political fray and away from events of her center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Merkel, who was “The World’s Most Powerful Woman” by Forbes magazine for 10 years in a row, was at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy between 2005 and 2021.
She was the first, and so far only woman, to serve as Germany’s chancellor.
However, Merkel’s legacy has faced criticism since quitting politics, most notably over her approach toward Moscow and Germany’s reliance on Russian gas.
