Brittney Griner Writing Memoir About Her Harrowing 10-Months In Russian Prison

Saying she is ready to share the "unfathomable" experience of being arrested and incarcerated in Russia, Brittney Griner is working on a memoir scheduled for spring 2024.

The WNBA All-Star was returning to Moscow to finish the season with a Russian team she’d been playing for in the offseason since 2014. 

"That day [in February] was the beginning of an unfathomable period in my life which only now am I ready to share," Griner said in a statement released Tuesday by Alfred A. Knopf publishers.

One week before Russia invaded Ukraine, Griner was detained at a Moscow airport for possessing less than a gram of cannabis oil. 

"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."

After being tried and sentenced to nine years in prison, Griner was released on December 8, 2022, in exchange for Russian arms dealer and Putin ally, Viktor Bout.

Raise Awareness

Griner, according to Knopf, said that she hoped her book would raise awareness about other Americans detained overseas, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who was arrested in Russia last month and accused of espionage. Other Americans are still being held in Russia on similar charges, including former Marine and corporate security expert Paul Whelan, also accused of spying.

Griner's memoir, as yet untitled, is expected to be published in a young adult edition. Financial terms were not disclosed, reported the AP.

In a Tuesday press statement, Knopf said that the book would be "intimate and moving" and that Griner would disclose "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."

"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," the announcement reads. "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."

The two-time Olympic gold medalist, Griner has long been an advocate for pay equity for women athletes and is the first openly gay athlete to land a Nike endorsement in 2013. She is the author of one previous book, "In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court," published in 2014.