from Pratchett’s childhood—being told by his teacher at six years old he would never amount to anything—through writing the Discworld series, winning the Carnegie Medal, and being knighted, to grappling with the challenges of Alzheimer’s. Pratchett was working on his autobiography until he died in 2015; A Life With Footnotes will include fragments from that work.
Wilkins, now the head of Pratchett’s literary estate, worked as Pratchett’s assistant and business manager for over fifteen years—and draws on his long collaboration and friendship with Pratchett in the biography. “The responsibility of documenting [Pratchett’s] life when I lived so much of it with him has been such an emotive experience,” said Wilkins in a statement. “A Life With Footnotes is a book that I hope would have made Terry proud. Living a life alongside one of the world’s greatest authors, then reliving every moment for his biography, has been an incredible journey. Terry was one of the most talented, complex, intellectually stimulating people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting—a true genius.”
