South African athlete Caster Semenya is publishing a memoir later this year, saying she hopes the book will show “how the world can welcome those born different”.
Semenya is an intersex woman and has spoken about the ordeals she’s faced in her career – including having to take testosterone-suppressing drugs, and offering to show her vagina to athletics officials when she was 18 to prove she was female.
The Race To Be Myself will be published in October in the UK by Merky Books, the publishing imprint started by British-Ghanaian rapper Stormzy. In South Africa it will be released by Jonathan Ball Publishers, who’ve also published a young adult fiction book about the athlete in the past.
Semenya says the public may know her for her Olympic feats, yet “there is still so much I need to relate about strength, courage, love, resilience and being true to who you are.”