NEW YORK – Two years after her shocking decision to resign as prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is set to publish a memoir.
Crown, a division of Penguin Random House, announced Tuesday that Ardern's “A Different Kind of Power" is scheduled for June 3. Only 37 when elected in 2017, Ardern will reflect on some of the decisions and events that made her known worldwide. She was widely praised for her compassionate response to the 2019 terrorist attacks against two mosques in Christchurch and for her initial handing of the coronavirus pandemic.
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“Some people thought kindness was sentimental, soft. A bit naive, even. I knew this. But I also knew they were wrong," Ardern said in a statement. "Kindness has a power and strength that almost nothing else on this planet has. I’d seen kindness do extraordinary things — I’d seen it give people hope, I’d seen it change minds, and transform live. Kindness. This was my guiding principle, and it would be the trait with which I would try to lead, no matter what lay ahead.”
By early 2023, the coronavirus was spreading, and resistance was growing to her zero-tolerance policy of mandates and other restrictions which had helped keep the pandemic out of New Zealand. With her popularity fading, Ardern stunned many supporters by deciding to leave, saying she no longer had “enough in the tank.” In June 2023, she was made a Dame Grand Companion, the second-highest honor in New Zealand, as part of King Charles III’s Birthday Honors. Around the same time, Ardern posted on Instagram that she was working on a book, one more focused on leadership than on “internal politics.”
Crown is calling her book a “deeply personal and inspiring memoir” that offers “Ardern’s unfiltered journey, from tenacious girl in small-town New Zealand to a trailblazing world leader who became the world’s youngest female head of government, and only the second in history to give birth while in office.”
“Ardern changed the world’s expectations of what a global leader can be. With remarkable candor, she shares the pivotal moments that defined her leadership and — for the first time — the details behind her decision to step down during her sixth year as Prime Minister," Crown announced.