And the accusations of the women in Sweden (which I believe, if charges are formalised, should be heard in front of a judge) do remain unanswered, in court at least.īut I also know that it is especially dangerous to pass casual judgment on the character of people who confront the powerful, because our perceptions of them are open to manipulation by those to whom they present a threat. I'm aware of what feeds it: there's plenty in the Annals of Assange about fallings-out with past collaborators – enough to suggest a ' burn that bridge when we get to it' approach to life.

It's almost impossible to counter this kind of attitude, with its shallow presumptions about the character of someone never met and the guilt of someone never tried. And, sure enough, here it so often comes, as if read from the page: 'I mean, he's a weirdo isn't he? That massive ego. I know the general script that will follow. I've become wearily accustomed to this over my time working with Assange: the vituperation heaped on my author, the scorn directed at me for giving him a platform. 'Assange,' he echoes, 'he's a bit of a cunt isn't he?' 'Well,' I say, shouting to make myself heard above the music, 'I've just published Julian Assange.' The young man's demeanour changes abruptly and he fixes me with a sneer. I pick the one writer of whom I'm pretty certain he will have heard. I reply that I'm a publisher and he asks whose books I'm working on. He tells me he is a journalist on one of the city's listings magazines and asks what I do for a job. It's June of last year and I'm at a party in New York when a friendly, youngish man with a beard and a beer engages me in conversation.

I'm the co-publisher of Assange's most recent book ( Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet) and I, too, have found the experience frequently exasperating. O'Hagan relates his experiences when working as a ghostwriter on an autobiography of the WikiLeaks leader that ended up being published in opposition to its subject's wishes. A great deal has been written recently about the frustrations of publishing a book with Julian Assange, mainly in a widely discussed, marathon article for the London Review of Books by Andrew O'Hagan.

My story isnt over yet anklet