Read a recap of the Chancellor’s Colloquium with Brittney Griner

In the wake of her New York Times-bestselling memoir Coming Home, 10-time WNBA all-star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner will join Chancellor Gary S. May this fall for a colloquium in partnership with the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts to discuss Griner’s detainment in Russia and her journey home.

On Feb. 17, 2022, the WNBA champion arrived in Moscow ready to spend the offseason playing for the Russian women’s basketball team, when she was arrested on charges of carrying hash oil. The cannabis product she was carrying weighed less than 1 gram, and was prescribed to her to treat chronic pain, her lawyers reportedly told the Russian court.

In Coming Home, Brittney shares the details of her arrest, her 10 months of detention, the global call for Griner’s release including the hashtag #WeAreBG, and the eventual prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. 

Publisher Knopf describes the memoir:

Coming Home is more than Brittney’s journey from captivity to freedom. She shares how her deep love for Cherelle, her college sweetheart and wife of six years, anchored her during their greatest storm; how her family’s support pulled her back from the brink; and how hundreds of letters from friends and neighbors lent her resolve to keep fighting. Coming Home is both a story of survival and a testament to love — the bonds that brought Brittney home to her family, and at last, to herself.

The event will be held in the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall, and tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on July 26.

Chancellor May will moderate the discussion and Q&A.