Random House will publish Hope, the autobiography of Pope Francis, in the U.S. on January 14, 2025. Random House senior editor Molly Turpin acquired world English rights to the book, and an audiobook will be released simultaneously in English by Penguin Random House Audio. Italian publisher Mondadori is managing world rights, and Hope will be published simultaneously worldwide in principal languages in more than 80 countries.
The book, touted by Random House as "the first memoir written by a sitting pontiff," was cowritten with Carlo Musso, former nonfiction editorial director of Piemme and Sperling & Kupfer, and founder of independent publisher Pienogiorno. Hope took six years to write, and was originally intended to be published after the Pope's death. It will also include photographs, as well as "private and unpublished material made personally available by the Pope," per the publisher.
Beyond Random House in the U.S. and Mondadori in Italy, publishers now involved in the publication of Hope include:
- Penguin Random House Canada
- Viking (U.K.)
- Albin Michel (France)
- Penguin Random House / Kösel-Verlag (Germany)
- Penguin Random House (Spain and Portugal)
- Companhia das letras (Brazil)
- Znanje (Croatia)
- Ikar (Slovakia)
- Kossuth Kiado (Hungary)
- Polirom (Romania)
- Gutenberg Dardanos (Greece)
- Catholic Publishing House (Korea)
- Penguin Random House / Rosa del vents (Catalonia)
- Swiat Ksiazki (Poland)
- Lithuanian Writers Union (Lithuania)
In March 2024, HarperCollins published Life: My Story Through History by Pope Francis across its global operations. While the book was not billed as a memoir, it featured the Pope's recollections of historical events, including the outbreak of World War II, and reflections on current issues.
