Brittney Griner announces upcoming memoir about her ‘unfathomable’ 10-month detention in Russia

WNBA star Brittney Griner is preparing to release a memoir next year about her 2022 Moscow arrest, her drug trial and subsequent 10-month detention, the last few weeks of which were spent in a Russian penal colony.

‘That day [in February] was the beginning of an unfathomable period in my life that I am only now willing to share,” Griner said in a statement released Tuesday by publisher Alfred A. Knopf.

Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport last year after security found cannabis oil in her bag. She was held for almost 10 months, much of it in prison. Her plight unfolded at the same time Russia invaded Ukraine and tensions between Russia and the US escalated further, ending only after she was released in exchange for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

She hopes her book will help other Americans held abroad, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, arrested in Russia last month and charged with espionage; businessman Kai Li, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence in China on charges of revealing state secrets to the FBI; and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges.

“By writing this book, I also hope to raise awareness of other Americans who are wrongly detained abroad, such as Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Emad Shargi, Airan Berry, Shahab Dalili, Luke Denman, Eyvin Hernandez, Majd Kamalmaz , Jerrel Kenemore, Kai Li, Siamak Namazi, Austin Tice, Mark Swidan and Morad Tahbaz.’

Griner, a WNBA All-Star with the Phoenix Mercury, had flown to Moscow in February 2022 to rejoin UMMC Ekaterinburg, a Russian women’s team she had played for since the 2014 off-season.

“The main reason I traveled back to Russia for work that day was because I wanted to make my wife, family and teammates proud,” Griner wrote. “After an incredibly challenging 10 months in detention, I am thankful to have been rescued and home. Readers will hear my story and understand why I am so grateful for the support of people around the world.”

Russia has been a popular playing destination for top WNBA athletes in the off-season, with some earning salaries in excess of $1 million – nearly quadruple what they can earn as base WNBA salary. Despite pleading guilty to possession of cannabis oil canisters, a result of what she said was hasty packing, Griner still faced a trial under Russian law.

Griner’s memoir is currently untitled and will eventually be published in a young adult edition. Financial terms were not disclosed and Penguin Random House spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

In Tuesday’s press statement, Knopf said the book would be “intimate and moving” and that Griner “described in vivid detail her harrowing experience of her wrongful detention (as classified by the State Department) and the difficulty of dealing with Byzantine Russian legal procedures to navigate would reveal. system in a language she didn’t speak.’

“Griner also chronicles her grim and surreal time in a foreign prison and the terrifying aspects of everyday life in a women’s penal colony,” the announcement reads. “At the heart of the book, Griner highlights the personal turmoil she experienced during the nearly ten-month ordeal and the resilience that carried her to the day of her return to the United States last December.”

Griner, 32, is a two-time six-foot-tall Olympic gold medalist, three-time All-American at Baylor University, a prominent advocate for equal pay for female athletes, and the first openly gay athlete to reach an endorsement deal with Nike. She is the author of a previous book, ‘In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court’, published in 2014.

In February, she re-signed with the Mercury and will star in the upcoming season, which will run from May to September.