Its title is “HOPE”, the autobiography of Pope Francis, the first in history to be written by a pope, and it will appear simultaneously worldwide in principal languages and in over 80 countries next January. The announcement of the event took place today at the Frankfurt Book Fair by Mondadori, which manages world rights.

“The book of my life is the story of a journey of hope, a journey that I cannot separate from the journey of my family, of my people, of all God’s people. In every page, in every passage, it is also the book of those who have traveled with me, of those who came before, of those who will follow,” comments Pope Francis in the note that announces the publication of the book. “An autobiography is not our own private story, but rather the baggage we carry with us. And memory is not just what we recall, but what surrounds us. It doesn’t speak only about what has been, but about what will be. It seems like yesterday, and yet it’s tomorrow. All is born to blossom in an eternal springtime. In the end, we will say only: I don’t recall anything in which You are not there.”

With a wealth of revelations and unpublished stories, moving and very human, poignant and dramatic, but also capable of real humor, Francis’s memoir starts off in the early years of the twentieth century with the story of his Italian roots and his ancestors’ adventure of emigration to Latin America, moving on to his childhood, adolescence, choice of vocation, adult life, covering the whole of his papacy up to the present day. A text of great narrative force in which the Pope through his autobiographical account addresses candidly, courageously and prophetically some of the most important and controversial questions of our current times, as well as the crucial moments of his service as universal pastor of the Church.

Written with Carlo Musso, former non-fiction editorial director of Piemme and Sperling & Kupfer, and then founder of the independent publisher Libreria Pienogiorno, in accordance with the wishes of Pope Francis this exceptional document was originally intended to be published after his death, but the new Jubilee of Hope announced for 2025, and the needs of our times, have moved him to make this precious legacy available now. “It has been a long, intense adventure that has taken up the past six years: work on writing it began in March 2019 and will be completed in the forthcoming weeks,” Musso comments.

The book, destined to fascinate readers throughout the world and to represent a legacy of hope for future generations, is enhanced by some remarkable photographs, including private and unpublished material made personally available by the Pope himself.

These are the publishers now involved in the publication: Italy Mondadori, USA Random House, UK Viking, Canada Penguin Random House, France Albin Michel, Germany Penguin Random House / Kösel-Verlag, Spain Penguin Random House, Portugal Penguin Random House, Brazil Companhia das letras, Croatia Znanje, Slovakia Ikar, Hungary Kossuth Kiado, Romania Polirom, Greece Gutenberg Dardanos, Korea Catholic Publishing House, Catalonia Penguin Random House / Rosa del vents, Poland Swiat Ksiazki, Lithuania Lithuanian Writers Union, Czechia Euromedia.