What Goes Around: Canongate Will Publish Wikileaks Creators’ Autobiography Without His Consent

It seems somewhat fitting that when Wikileaks founder Julian Assange changed his mind about publishing his memoir -- without returning his £500,000 advance -- UK publisher Canongate set up a high security operation to publish the book in secrecy to keep Assange from blocking sales of the book. From The Guardian:

Julian Assange's publishers will publish on Thursday the “unauthorized first draft” of his autobiography without his consent, months after the WikiLeaks founder withdrew from a million-pound contract for his memoirs.

In a dramatic move, Canongate has defied Assange’s wishes and secretly printed thousands of copies of Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography, with the book being shipped amid strict security to booksellers in preparation for imminent release. The enormous security operation was put in place by the publishers, according to a source, to stop the author blocking publication.

Knopf, who had purchased rights to publish the book in the United States, has not gone forward with their publication. Meanwhile, Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Biography goes on sale in the UK today.

There’s much more to the story and you can read about it here and here.

When Assange first hatched his book deal late last year, we reported on it here.