Michael Ignatieff’s new book, Fire and Ashes, will be published this September.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Abruptly retired politician Michael Ignatieff is promising to tell all about his ignominious experience running against the ruling Conservatives and surging New Democrats as leader of the Liberal Party in the 2011 election.
Described as "candid and unexpected" and "the most difficult book he's ever written" by its publisher, Random House Canada, Fire and Ashes promises "a stirring meditation on contemporary politics and the lessons [Ignatieff] learned in defeat" when it is published this September.
One insider said the author is "extremely honest and hard on himself" in the book – an opinion shared by fellow writer-turned-politician-turned writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who provided a blurb describing Ignatieff's latest as "exceptionally insightful and honest."
He added that Fire and Ashes "is a compass that will help the reader find his or her way in the dizzying maze that politics has become in the great modern democracies."