Damien Hirst to publish autobiography

Damien Hirst with his work 'I Am Become Death, Shatterer of Worlds 2006 Credit: Lewis Whyld/PA Wire/Press Association Images

Controversial west country artist Damien Hirst is reported to have signed up Rolling Stone Keith Richards' ghost-writer to work on his autobiography.

The book, due to be published by Viking Penguin next year, will follow Hirst's rise to fame which has seen him become of the country's wealthiest artists.

Hirst, who won the Turner Prize in 1995, rose to fame as part of a group known as the Young British Artists and is probably best known for a series of works in which he preserved animals, including a shark and a sheep, in formaldehyde.

His more recent works include Verity, a 66ft (20m) bronze-plated statue of a pregnant, naked woman wielding a sword, unveiled at Ilfracombe harbour in north Devon.

Hirst installed a bronze statue on the harbour of Ilfracombe in Devon - a controversial piece. Credit: Ben Birchall/PA Archive/Press Association Images

A solo show at Tate Modern in London in 2012 was the most popular in the gallery's history, with around 463,000 visitors queuing to see exhibits including a diamond-encrusted human skull called For The Love Of God.

Publisher Venetia Butterfield said the book would be a "momentous publishing event" and the firm hopes it will repeat the recent success of Morrissey's memoirs, which proved a surprise best-seller.

Co-writer James Fox, who worked with Keith Richards on his 2010 best-seller Life, said the book promised to be a fascinating story, told with Hirst's witty style and northern edge