Brittney Griner says she’s ready to share the “unfathomable” experience of being arrested and imprisoned in Russia and is working on a memoir planned for spring 2024.

The WNBA All-Star returned to Moscow to finish the season with one Russian team She had played in the off-season since 2014.

“This day [in February] was the beginning of an unfathomable time in my life that I can only now share,” Griner said in a statement released Tuesday by publisher Alfred A. Knopf.

A week before Russia invaded Ukraine, Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport for possession of less than one gram of cannabis oil.

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

Griner was tried and sentenced to nine years in prison was released in exchange on December 8, 2022 for Russian arms dealers and Putin allies, Victor fight.

create awareness

According to Knopf, Griner said she hopes her book would raise awareness for other Americans incarcerated abroad, 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 naval and corporate security experts Paul Whelanalso accused of espionage.

Griner’s memoirs, still untitled, are to be published in a youth edition. Financial terms were not disclosed, the AP reported.

In a Tuesday press release, Knopf said the book would be “intimate and moving” and that Griner would “explain in vivid detail her harrowing experience of her wrongful imprisonment (as classified by the State Department) and the difficulty of dealing with the Byzantine Russians.” ..