Brittney Griner to release memoir detailing 'harrowing experience' in Russian detainment
Griner's memoir is expected to be released in spring 2024
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner was released from a Russian jail in December after nearly 10-months in captivity.
Now she’s ready to tell her story.
Cherelle Griner and Brittney Griner speak onstage during the 54th NAACP Image Awards at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on February 25, 2023 in Pasadena, California. (Leon Bennett/Getty Images for BET)
Griner, 32, announced Tuesday that she will be releasing a memoir about her February 2022 arrest when she was taken into Russian custody at an airport in Moscow on drug-related charges.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I arrived in Moscow to rejoin the UMMC Ekaterinburg basketball team and was immediately detained at the airport. That day was the beginning of an unfathomable period in my life which only now am I ready to share," Griner wrote in a post on Instagram.
"The primary reason I traveled back to Russia for work that day was because I wanted to make my wife, family, and teammates proud. After an incredibly challenging 10 months in detainment, I am grateful to have been rescued and to be home. Readers will hear my story and understand why I’m so thankful for the outpouring of support from people across the world."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner, stands listening to a verdict in a courtroom in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP)
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Publisher Alfred A. Knopf said in a press release Tuesday that the memoir is currently without a title but is scheduled to be released in spring 2024.
It will discuss her nearly 10-month long detainment, her trial, the efforts to bring her home, and the beginning of the #WeAreBG movement.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It will also touch on the pay disparity female athletes face in the U.S. — the driving force behind her playing overseas.
Brittney Griner #42 of the Phoenix Mercury looks on during the game against the Connecticut Sun on September 11, 2021 at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images)
"Griner discloses in vivid detail her harrowing experience of her wrongful detainment (as classified by the State Department) and the difficulty of navigating the byzantine Russian legal system in a language she did not speak," the press release read.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Griner also describes her stark and surreal time living in a foreign prison and the terrifying aspects of day-to-day life in a women’s penal colony. At the heart of the book, Griner highlights the personal turmoil she experienced during the near ten-month ordeal and the resilience that carried her through to the day of her return to the United States last December."
Griner added Tuesday that in telling her story, she hopes to "raise awareness" for other Americans "wrongfully detained abroad."