amir khan is being offerd £500.000 to tell his story.read more...
He is an Olympic medallist, charity ambassador and role model for a generation of British Muslims. Now 19-year-old boxer Amir Khan is to add the distinction of being one of the youngest people to publish the story of their life.
Khan trails singer Charlotte Church who, also aged 19, is already on to the second volume of her memoirs, having begun the first when she was all of 14. But he betters the mark of footballer Wayne Rooney, whose autobiography was recently announced with him already well over the hill at 20. David Beckham and Robbie Williams were grand old men of 28.
A bidding war among publishers has been won by Bloomsbury, best known for turning Harry Potter author JK Rowling into one of the world's richest women. Bloomsbury declined to reveal how much it is paying the prodigiously talented teenager, but industry sources estimated the fee to be up to half a million pounds. Khan is unlikely to do much of the writing himself as the book, A Boy from Bolton, to be published in October, will be ghosted by Kevin Garside of the Daily Telegraph
The autobiography will range from Khan's Pakistani background and his childhood in Bolton to winning a lightweight silver in the 2004 Olympics in Athens at 17, one of the rewards for which included an invitation to tea at Buckingham Palace. He has won all six fights since he turned professional and is on the way to becoming a millionaire. But Bloomsbury believes his appeal goes way beyond sport: as a British-born Muslim, he has become an icon of 21st century multiculturalism. A pin-up at home, he has also undertaken charity trips to Kashmir to meet children who survived last year's devastating earthquake.
'I'm thrilled at the prospect of telling my story,' Khan said. 'I hope people will enjoy reading about my journey all the way to the Olympic Games and beyond. There were many twists and turns along the way. When I first walked into a gym at eight I had no idea the road would lead to fame and fortune, and a date with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. But it did.'
Khan's manager, Frank Warren, acknowledged that some critics will pour scorn on the idea of an autobiography by a teenager. 'I've done it myself, when you see it with some of these pop stars,' he said. 'But I think this, the first 20 years of his life, is a really interesting story. We are a multicultural society and here's a young man who has come through as one of the real heroes. He's probably the most high profile Muslim sportsman in the UK. How does he feel to be a flag bearer?'
Warren said the book would have a broad potential readership. 'He attracts the young market and the old market: he's got granny appeal. I'm an Arsenal fan and when we went to Arsenal v Bolton, where he's from, all the old girls were going up to him for autographs.'
Khan is the latest high profile signing by Bloomsbury, which has also recently struck lucrative deals with David Blunkett, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Germaine Greer. It moved into pop music with a seemingly extravagant £1m fee for the autobiography of former Take That star Gary Barlow, and will now expand into sport with Khan.
Mike Jones, senior editor at Bloomsbury, said: 'He is a role model and, for his 19 years, he bears it very well indeed. His appeal is enormous, and crosses generational, cultural and racial divides.'
But Joel Rickett, deputy editor of the Bookseller, said that young memoirists were not always the most successful. 'The bestsellers last year were by people over 50, for example John Peel, Alan Bennett and Sharon Osborne, who had an incredible life before she became famous. A young person's life story is a harder sell, but if it's kept lively and short it can succeed.'
