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The book largely glosses over the bloody internal conflict in Peru that left some 70,000 dead in the 1980s and 1990s.
Guzman has been behind bars since he was captured in a 1992 police raid. He is currently being held in a maximum security prison in the port of Callao, just west of Lima.
The book is based on hand-written letters, including love notes, that Guzman, 75, sent his lover Elena Yparraguirre, 61, who was also sentenced to life in prison. The two have not seen each other since 2006.
Guzman considers himself a "political prisoner and a prisoner of war" and seems resigned to dying behind bars.
Guzman said he enjoyed football as a child and once contemplated a career in the Peruvian military.
However "it was the Chinese revolution and Mao" in 1949, that led him to join Peru's communist party when he was just 15.
The book contains little self-criticism, though Guzman's attorney Alfredo Crespo told AFP that the jailed ex-leader had earlier admitted "mistakes and excesses" in the conflict.
Those "mistakes and excesses" unmentioned in the book include a 1983 massacre in the Andean town of Lucanamarca where 69 farmers were killed, and a 1992 car bomb in a residential Lima neighborhood that killed more than 20 civilians.
The book goes on sale Saturday, on the 17th anniversary of Guzman's arrest.
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Guzman has been behind bars since he was captured in a 1992 police raid. He is currently being held in a maximum security prison in the port of Callao, just west of Lima.
The book is based on hand-written letters, including love notes, that Guzman, 75, sent his lover Elena Yparraguirre, 61, who was also sentenced to life in prison. The two have not seen each other since 2006.
Guzman considers himself a "political prisoner and a prisoner of war" and seems resigned to dying behind bars.
Guzman said he enjoyed football as a child and once contemplated a career in the Peruvian military.
However "it was the Chinese revolution and Mao" in 1949, that led him to join Peru's communist party when he was just 15.
The book contains little self-criticism, though Guzman's attorney Alfredo Crespo told AFP that the jailed ex-leader had earlier admitted "mistakes and excesses" in the conflict.
Those "mistakes and excesses" unmentioned in the book include a 1983 massacre in the Andean town of Lucanamarca where 69 farmers were killed, and a 1992 car bomb in a residential Lima neighborhood that killed more than 20 civilians.
The book goes on sale Saturday, on the 17th anniversary of Guzman's arrest.
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