Julian Assange is understood to have sold his memoirs, to publishers Canongate in the UK and Knopf in the US. The news leaked appropriately enough via a tweet from Spanish publisher Random House Mondadori, with head of the literary division Claudio Lopez telling the world that "Manuscrito listo en marzo" — the manuscript will be ready in March.

Online money and finance website DailyFinance said Canongate publisher Jamie Byng had confirmed the news to the site by email, telling them that the UK publisher was handling all the translation rights. Literary agency Peters, Fraser and Dunlop declined to comment on reports that agent Caroline Michel had sealed the English language deals for the WikiLeaks founder's book.

Assange is currently on bail in England, and defending himself against the Swedish authorities' demands that he return to the country to face questioning over allegations of sexual assault.

Assange's memoir would come hard on the heels of a volume from his former second-in-command Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose Inside Wikileaks: My Time at the World's Most Dangerous Website is set to tell the inside story of the whistle-blowing site in the new year. The book is due out from German publisher Econ Verlag on 27 January.

Contacted by the Guardian this morning, Canongate refused to "confirm or deny" the story.