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The ghost writer hired to help Julian Assange with an autobiography deal that ultimately fell apart has described the WikiLeaker as "thin-skinned, conspiratorial, untruthful and narcissistic".

Andrew O' Hagan, who started working with Assange while he was on bail over the allegations of sexual assault in Sweden three years ago, has finally opened up about his months on the project, a hugely lucrative book deal that ended in a publishing disaster.

O'Hagan, who remained on good terms with Assange for a number of years after the deal went sour, wrote a long essay for the London Review of Books that described how the WikiLeaks head procrastinated, delayed and ultimately torpedoed the book contract.

Shortly after Assange got out on bail, he signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Canongate and foreign publishers for an autobiography that he and his lawyers believed would help him to cover his legal costs. But O'Hagan came to believe that Assange never wanted the book to happen.

"His vanity and the organisations need for money couldnt resist the project, but he never really considered the outcome, that Id be there, making marks on a page that would in some way represent this process," he said.

"He had signed up for a book he didnt really want to publish because as he alleged to me separately [his lawyer] Mark Stephens had suggested it might help cover costs."

According to O'Hagan's account, Assange would do anything to change the subject from the questions the writer had for the book and spent months avoiding marking up the first draft of the book or contributing any of the written material he had promised. As deadlines for the book crept closer, Assange started to rant that he'd never wanted to write an autobiography and wanted a manifesto instead, even though he wouldn't write down any of his thoughts and beliefs for a manifesto.

"The man who put himself in charge of disclosing the worlds secrets simply couldnt bear his own," O'Hagan said. "The story of his life mortified him and sent him scurrying for excuses. He didnt want to do the book. He hadnt from the beginning."

O'Hagan eventually left the project, which Canongate published as an unauthorised biography in September 2011 in an attempt to salvage something out of the deal, despite Assange's attempts to stop the presses. However, the biography sold just 644 copies in the first three days, a disaster for the publishing house.

Read more from the original source:
Ghostwriter: Assange™ is NARCISSISTIC and UNTRUTHFUL

An anonymous reader writes "From the Telegraph, 'He is vain, secretive, paranoid and jealous, prone to leering at young women and making frequent sexist jokes and that's not the view of one of his many enemies, but of a friend ... A damning picture of Julian Assange ... has emerged in a detailed account by his ghostwriter. Assange behaves ... like an egotistical tyrant interested more in his own self-publicity than in changing the world. Worse still, he turns on his friends with increasing regularity ... Assange describes the Ecuadorean ambassador offering him diplomatic asylum as 'mad', 'fat' and 'ludicrous'. Even Assange's girlfriend, WikiLeaks researcher Sarah Harrison, grew increasingly frustrated at his behaviour. 'He openly chats girls up and has his hands on their a**e and goes nuts if I even talk to another guy,' she says. O'Hagan, who had hoped to find an anti-authoritarian rebel figure worthy of admiration, says he comes to regard Assange as someone who sacrificed the moral high-ground by attempting to evade trial over the rape charges.' The Scotsman adds, 'Canongate director Jamie Byng yesterday hailed O'Hagan's account of the "impossibility of trying to ghost Assange's memoirs". He tweeted: "Andy O'Hagan's compelling, ring side account of Being (& being around) Julian Assange is smart, accurate and fair."'"

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Ghostwriter Reveals the Secret Life of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange