Women's basketball superstar Brittney Griner announced on Tuesday that she is writing a book about her ten months of imprisonment in Russia, completed in December thanks to a prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington.
The book, whose title is not yet known, should be released in 2024, according to the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf.
Brittney Griner describes her “
austere and surreal
” experience and “
the terrifying aspects of daily life
” in a Russian penal colony, she said.
This figure from the LGBT+ community was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport with a vaporizer and liquid containing cannabis, a product banned in Russia.
The basketball player had been hired by the Russian team from Ekaterinburg, during the American off-season, a common practice.
Sentenced to nine years in prison last August
In August, she was sentenced to nine years in prison and then, after her appeal was rejected, was transferred in November to a penal colony in central Russia.
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She was traded for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout
The arrest was "
the beginning of an unimaginable time in my life that I was not ready to talk about until then
," Brittney Griner said in a statement.
“
The main reason I went to Russia for my job that day was to make my wife, my family and my teammates proud
,” she added.
Brittney Griner had been exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, a prisoner in the United States.
Tensions between the United States and Russia on this subject were reignited by the arrest of American journalist Evan Gershkovich on March 29, described as "
totally illegal
" by President Joe Biden on Tuesday.