Basketball star Brittney Griner will tell the story of her imprisonment in Russia in a new memoir.
Knopf will publish the as-yet-untitled book by the Phoenix Mercury center in the spring of 2024, the press announced in a news release. Griner will work with a co-writer on the memoir, which the publisher calls “intimate and moving.”
Griner, considered one of the country’s greatest women’s basketball players, also played for UMMC Ekaterinburg, a Russian team. She was arrested at an airport near Moscow on Feb. 17, 2022, charged with possessing a vaporizer cartridge with hash oil.
She pleaded guilty, and last August, was sentenced to nine years in prison. On Dec. 8, she was released in a prisoner exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian who had been convicted in the U.S. on conspiracy charges and was serving a 25-year sentence.
“I arrived in Moscow to rejoin the UMMC Ekaterinburg basketball team and was immediately detained at the airport,” Griner said in a statement. “That day was the beginning of an unfathomable period in my life which only now am I ready to share.…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.”
Knopf publisher Reagan Arthur praised Griner, saying, “Brittney Griner has been a trailblazing pioneer in the world of sports for over a decade. Her memoir recounts not only one of the biggest news stories of 2022 but also centers on a personal story of survival and hope.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
