Convicted murderer and Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was released on parole on Friday, 5 January. Photo: Siphiwe Sibeko/ POOL/ AFP
In less than a week since his release on parole from Pretoria’s Atteridgeville Correctional Centre last Friday, Oscar Pistorius reportedly already has a book publishing offer on the table for his tell-all prison memoir.
According to The Sun on Sunday, publishers anticipate that the former star athlete’s memoir will be a big money-spinner, and could potentially even be turned into a movie.
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The UK publication revealed that “bidding” has already opened with an eyewatering £1 million (R23 millon) offer for Pistorius’s “inside story”.
In a real-life drama which gripped the world, Oscar Pistorius’s world of fame, fortune and fast cars came crashing down around him when he was jailed in 2014 for the murder of his 29-year-old model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
Nicknamed “Blade Runner” for his carbon-fibre running blades, Pistorius famously made history at the 2012 London Olympics, where he was the first double amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes.
The high-flying Paralympian gold medallist has served almost nine years of his 13-year, five-month sentence. His spent his first year at the notorious and feared Kgosi Mampuru II maximum security prison in Pretoria before he was moved to Atteridgeville where he had his own adapted cell.
During his time behind bars, Pistorius endured being beaten up by fellow inmates, overcame poisoned food fears, played football with a Czech mafia boss Radovan Krejcir and became a spiritual leader to inmates, leading Bible study groups.
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The Sun on Sunday reported that, according to a family source, Pistorius spent “a lot of time writing” while he was behind bars.
“Some prisoners do this to show the parole board that they have accepted what they have done. There are already a lot of publishers that are interested,” the source revealed.
“But publishing a book, and particularly making money out of it, has gone down very badly with Reeva’s family.”
According to Mail Online, sources revealed that the possibility of publishing a book and profiting from it has outraged the Steenkamp family. They are outraged at the possibility of the former athlete “cashing in” on the killing of the 29-year-old model and law graduate.
Pistorius’ strict parole conditions ban him from speaking to the media, and a book publishing deal might have to be put on the back burner until December 2029 when he has served his full sentence unless he gets permission from the Department of Correctional Services (DCS).
The sporting icon’s autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with journalist Gianni Merlo. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008.
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