Woody Allen's memoirs will finally be published, two weeks after Hachette's withdrawal, under pressure, the publisher Arcade Publishing announced the release of the book on Monday, according to several American media.
A controversy as soon as the publication of the memoirs was announced ...
The rights to the book, entitled "Apropos of Nothing", were originally acquired by Grand Central Publishing, a subsidiary of the Hachette group, which announced on March 2 that it would be published soon, to everyone's surprise. But the surprise announcement sparked an uproar, fueled by journalist and author Ronan Farrow, Woody Allen's own son. Ronan Farrow criticized Grand Central Publishing and Hachette for not taking more care with this autobiography, particularly with regard to the charges of sexual assault against Woody Allen.
... against a background of sexual abuse
Dylan Farrow's adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, claims to have been sexually abused by Woody Allen in 1992 when she was 7 years old, which her adoptive father always denied. Affirming that Hachette had not carried out the necessary "verifications", Ronan Farrow had indicated that he no longer wished to work with the publisher, of which another subsidiary, Little, Brown and Company, had published his latest work, "Les Silence ".
Woody Allen denies
Several Hachette employees had demonstrated outside the Grand Central Publishing headquarters in New York to express their disapproval. Four days after the announcement of the book's upcoming release, Hachette had finally given up publishing it. "In this strange time, where the truth is too often swept away as 'fake news', we publishers prefer to let a respected artist speak, rather than give in to those who want to silence him," wrote the co-founder of d 'Arcade Publishing, Jeannette Seaver, in a press release sent to the Variety site.
The book is about the personal and professional life of Woody Allen, now 84 years old. The book was not available Monday on major online sales sites. According to The Hollywood Reporter , which quotes extracts from these memoirs, Woody Allen assures him that he "never lifted a finger on Dylan". "It was an invention from start to finish," says the director.