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Headline will publish the memoir of Tarana Burke, the founder and activist behind the 'Me Too' movement.
UK and Commonwealth rights were acquired by commissioning editor Katie Packer from Emily Westcott at CAA. Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement will be published on 14th September 2021 in the UK and US.
“Tarana Burke debuts a powerful memoir about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words, me too, and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation,” Headline said. It has already earned an endorsement from author Glennon Doyle among others.
The blurb reads: “Tarana didn't always have the courage to say me too. As a child, she reeled from her sexual assault, believing she was responsible. Tarana fought to reunite her fractured soul, through organising, pursuing justice, and finding community. In her debut memoir she shares her extensive work supporting and empowering Black and brown girls, and the devastating realisation that to truly help these girls she needed to help that scared, ashamed child still in her soul. Tarana has found that we can only offer empathy to others if we first offer it to ourselves.”
The book is dubbed by Headline as “the story of an inimitable woman's inner strength and perseverance, all in pursuit of bringing healing to her community and the world around her but also a story of possibility, of empathy, of power, and of the leader we all have inside ourselves”.
Burke founded the "Me Too" movement in 2006 to raise awareness of sexual abuse and assault in society and a non-profit organisation called Just Be in 2003. She works to dismantle the cycle of sexual violence and other systemic issues that disproportionately impact marginalised people. Her passion for community organising began in the late 1980s, when as a young girl she joined a youth development organisation called 21st Century. Since then she has launched initiatives around issues of racial discrimination, housing inequality, and economic justice. She was 2017 TIME Person of the Year and the winner of the 2019 Sydney Peace Prize, and has been the recipient of many other accolades.
Burke said: “I am delighted that my memoir, Unbound, will be published in the UK by Headline. ‘Me Too’ was a message that was felt globally and so it’s important to me that Unbound reaches as wide as it possibly can to hopefully bring empathy to anyone who reads it.”
Packer said: “Tarana’s story is one that will stay with me for a lifetime, and probably one that I will always go back to. I hope this book will offer hope to anyone who has been a victim of sexual violence, and that it will instil empathy into everyone who reads it.”