Brittney Griner to Release Memoir Recounting Journey From Olympic Champion to Russian Prisoner

etonline.com:

Brittney Griner is opening up about being held for months in Russian prisons on drug charges in an upcoming memoir. On Tuesday, Alfred A.

Knopf announced it will publish the WNBA star's as-of-yet untitled memoir in spring 2024. In a press release, the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group imprint shared that Griner «shares her raw, emotional journey from Olympic champion to hostage to her life today.» The novel will recount the tumultuous events of 2022 «that both reshaped her life and captured the world's attention...» The book will take readers through the 32-year-old's arrest at a Russian airport in February 2022, her detainment, trial and imprisonment in Russia, as well as «the efforts in public and behind the scenes at the highest levels of government to bring her home.»Griner's memoir will also highlight the beginnings of the global #WeAreBG movement, as well as «the issue of pay equity for women athletes in the United States — the very inequity that led Griner to play basketball in Russia for seven previous seasons and to return for an eighth on that fateful February day.»Griner will also describe 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 nearly ten-month ordeal and the resilience that carried her through to the day of her return to the United States last December.»A statement from Griner says, «I arrived in Moscow to rejoin the UMMC Ekaterinburg basketball team and was immediately detained at the airport.