‘I have tried to be honest and frank including mistakes and regrets as well as triumphs' – Leo Varadkar set to publish memoir this September
He signed a six-figure book deal with Sandycove, an imprint of the publisher Penguin, last year following a bidding war for the rights to his autobiography that involved nine publishers.
The former leader of Fine Gael, who resigned as both taoiseach and party leader in a shock announcement last April, said he has 'tried to be honest and frank' in his account.
The book, which is titled Speaking My Mind, will be released on September 11.
'I served in government at one of the most interesting periods in history - the aftermath of the economic crash, Brexit, transformative referendums and the pandemic,' he said, sharing the cover of the book to social media earlier today.
"The book is both personal and political and I hope it will give the reader new insights into that time. I have tried to be honest and frank including mistakes and regrets as well as triumphs.'
Mr Varadkar was awarded the title of 'Hauser Leader' at Harvard University's Kennedy School's Centre for Public Leadership earlier this year, where he is currently guest lecturing.
In a statement released by his publisher when he signed with them last year, Mr Varadkar said: 'I am really enjoying writing my story and I was keen to do so while it was still fresh in my head. It's as much a personal memoir as it is a book about political history.
"There is so much people know already about my time at the top but there is almost as much that they don't. I have the freedom now to say things I could not while holding office and I have enough distance to reflect on the mistakes I made as much as what was achieved.'
The former Fine Gael leader was elected to the Dáil in Dublin West in 2007 at the age of 28.
He contested the party leadership election following the resignation of Enda Kenny in 2017 and was elected taoiseach that year at the age of 38.
Mr Varadkar is one of a number of former taoisigh to publish his memoirs, including Brian Cowen and the late Albert Reynolds.
In 2008, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern agreed a €400,000-plus publishing deal with Cornerstone Publishing, a subsidiary company of US publishers Random House.
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But anyway, I wrote a love poem Feeney, who began her literary career as a poet, always had a strong imagination – 'as a child I was a bit, you know, out there' – though it was her 2014 hospitalisation with life-threatening sepsis that proved the catalyst for her first novel. 'I was like, 'You nearly died, you better write a book, you wanted to write a book, you better do it.' So that – my own mortality – put fire in me.' Last year she published All the Good Things You Deserve, her first poetry collection in seven years. Its powerful, devastating title poem deals with a sexual assault that happened to her while she was in college. 'That was very personal, and I've done very little media about it. I just brought that softly, softly into the world,' she says. 'It took a long time to write the title poem, and to come to terms with putting any sort of narrative arc on the violence that I experienced as a younger woman. Of course, it was cathartic in some ways, but I really feel that art has to be more than a 'non-fiction of Elaine'. I wanted to tell that particular event in a way that I felt I was now controlling that story, finally, and it was no longer in control of me.' The collection ends with a love poem for her husband, though she had always told herself she was too cautious to write love poetry. 'Why would I risk everything by committing my love to paper? But anyway, I wrote a love poem.' When she alludes early in our conversation to a fourth novel in the works, I say I normally wait until the end to venture that question. So, she's already thinking about the next one? 'Of course I'm thinking about it. I wish I could just relax,' she says, but she doesn't sound too unhappy about being unable to, nor does she want to 'do the whole 'oh my god'' about being busy. 'Choices, my mother would say.' Mainly she feels relief that she got Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way down on paper and delight about everything from the joy of being served lemon and honey tea every day while recording its audiobook to the loveliness of being Booker-longlisted in 2023 alongside three other Irish authors. Sebastian Barry sent her a 'very generous' email, she says, when neither of them made the shortlist cut. 'I have nothing but gratitude now. That is genuinely how I feel about it. The journey has been mind-blowing for the last six or seven years. I haven't really stopped and taken stock of it, but once or twice I have, and I've just gone, 'Oh yeah, I'm really lucky.'' Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is published by Harvill Secker
