Rajinikanth is writing his autobiography — and he is doing it the way he does most things: quietly, methodically, and in parallel with everything else. Lokesh Kanagaraj, who directed the superstar in Coolie, first revealed the news in July 2025: during the film’s last two shooting schedules, Rajinikanth spent two hours every day on set writing his life story. His daughter Soundarya Rajinikanth confirmed the project again in January 2026, calling the eventual book “a global phenomenon.” No publisher or release date has been announced yet — but the writing is active and ongoing.
How Did the Autobiography News Come Out?
The revelation came from an unlikely source. Lokesh Kanagaraj, in interviews ahead of Coolie‘s release, disclosed that Rajinikanth had been absorbed in writing during the film’s final production schedules. “Sir was busy in the last two schedules with his autobiography,” Lokesh said, adding that Rajinikanth would set aside two hours each day on set to write — not in a study or at home, but between takes on an active film production.
What Lokesh described next adds weight to why the book will be different from the two biographies already written about Rajinikanth by outside authors. “Sir shared things with me he hadn’t revealed to anyone else,” Lokesh said. “That experience is something I’ll always cherish.” He noted that Rajinikanth would occasionally tell him which phase of life he was writing about — referencing specific years, like his 42nd year — and describe events from that period that had never been discussed publicly. That the director of his 171st film became an inadvertent first reader of portions of the autobiography is itself an unusual detail.
In January 2026, Soundarya Rajinikanth added official family confirmation while speaking to media during promotions for her film With Love. She said when the book is published, it will be “a global phenomenon,” citing her father’s discipline, spiritual balance, and humility as qualities that make his story universally relatable beyond Tamil or Indian audiences.
What Will Rajinikanth’s Autobiography Cover?
Based on what has emerged from both Lokesh Kanagaraj’s comments and industry sources, the autobiography is expected to span the full arc of Rajinikanth‘s life — including chapters that have never been discussed in interviews or in either of the two prior biographies written about him.
The opening chapters will cover the early years in Bengaluru — born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad in 1950, working as a carpenter’s apprentice and then a bus conductor before being spotted by legendary director K. Balachander, who cast him in Apoorva Raagangal in 1975. That origin story has been told before in broad strokes — but Rajinikanth writing it himself, from memory, with the specific events from each year that he shared with Lokesh, will produce a first-person texture that no biography can replicate.
The book is also expected to include a chapter on his spiritual life — specifically his mentorship under seers from the Ramakrishna Mission, a dimension of his life that has been almost entirely absent from mainstream media coverage despite being central to how people close to him describe his personality and decision-making.
Crucially, the autobiography is expected to address his political withdrawal in December 2020 in depth — for the first time in his own words. Rajinikanth had spent years building toward a political entry, establishing Rajini Makkal Mandram and publicly committing to contesting the Tamil Nadu elections. Then, days before announcing his party’s formation, he stepped back — citing blood pressure fluctuations, his kidney transplant history, and weakened immunity. His public statement asked fans to forgive him. The autobiography offers the first opportunity for him to explain what that decision actually cost him and why he made it.
Why Is This Autobiography Different From Books Already Written About Him?
Two significant books already exist about Rajinikanth: Rajinikanth: The Definitive Biography by Naman Ramachandran (Penguin Books India, 2012) and Rajinikanth: A Life published by Aleph Book Company. Both are thorough and well-researched — but both are written by outside observers, assembled from interviews, archives, and secondary sources.
What Rajinikanth is writing is categorically different. No major Indian male star at his scale — not Amitabh Bachchan, not Shah Rukh Khan (who began but never completed a memoir titled 20 Years to a Decade) — has published a complete self-written autobiography. If Rajinikanth completes and releases this book, it will be a first in the history of Indian mainstream cinema: a superstar of that generation, at that scale, writing his own unmediated account.
The specific detail that Lokesh mentioned — Rajinikanth narrating events from his 42nd year — is worth pausing on. Rajinikanth turned 42 in 1992. That year sits at the precise pivot point of his career: the period immediately preceding Baasha (1995) and Muthu (1995), the two films that consolidated his status not just as a Tamil superstar but as a global cultural figure. Whatever happened in that year in his personal life, it is the year a private man describes to his director as significant enough to write about. That is the kind of detail an autobiography produces that no biography ever could.
Why Did Soundarya Call It a “Global Phenomenon”?
Soundarya Rajinikanth‘s choice of words — “global phenomenon” — is not marketing language without a foundation. Rajinikanth is the only Indian actor with a documented, organically formed Japanese fan base that predates the internet era. When Muthu was dubbed into Japanese as Mutu: Odoru Maharaja and released in Japan in 1998, it grossed US $1.6 million — the first Tamil film to achieve commercial success in Japan. The Rajinikanth fan club in Tokyo alone has approximately 3,000 members. There are additional clubs in Osaka and Kobe. Some of those fans learned Tamil specifically to engage with his films in the original language.
An autobiography from this figure — written by the man himself, in his own voice — carries genuine crossover potential that no other Indian entertainer’s memoir could claim. The Japanese fanbase represents a readership that has waited decades for exactly this kind of direct access to the person behind the persona. Soundarya’s framing is accurate: the commercial and cultural reach of this book, if it is translated and marketed properly, extends well beyond India in a way that is demonstrably true and not aspirational.
When Will Rajinikanth’s Autobiography Release?
No publisher, release date, or title has been officially announced for Rajinikanth‘s autobiography as of March 2026. The writing is confirmed to be active and ongoing. Rajinikanth is currently committed to completing Coolie (his 171st film) and the announced Jailer 2 — both of which are expected to complete production through 2025–2026. The autobiography’s timeline is likely linked to the completion of his immediate film commitments, though no official statement has confirmed that sequencing.
What is clear is that the project is not a distant plan or a speculative announcement — it is a manuscript in progress, written by the man himself, two hours at a time, on the sets of his films. Whether it arrives in 2026 or 2027, it will be one of the most anticipated books in Indian publishing history when it does.