Three young Americans describe the time spent in captivity in Iran's infamous Evin Prison after they unknowingly crossed the border while hiking on vacation and were accused of espionage by the Iranian Border Patrol.
Shane Bauer is an award-winning investigative journalist and photographer. His articles have appeared in Mother Jones, the Nation, Salon, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications. His journalism has garnered a number of national awards, including the 2012-2013 John Jay / Harry Frank Guggenheim Award for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting.
Josh Fattal, a graduate of Berkeley's program in environmental economics and policy, is an activist and organizer focused on sustainable development. He has spoken at universities, human rights conferences, and private events to describe the experience of imprisonment in Iran.
Sarah Shourd is a writer, educator, and contributing editor at Solitary Watch currently based in Oakland, California. Sarah has done international human rights work with the Zapatista indigenous movement in Chiapas, Mexico; organized with women's groups against unsolved murders of sweatshop workers in Juarez, Mexico; and taught for the Iraqi Student Project while living in Damascus, Syria. After her wrongful imprisonment in Iran, Sarah has become an advocate for prisoners' rights, focusing her writing, speaking, and theater projects on the widespread use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons and jails. She has written for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, and Newsweek/Daily Beast, and contributes a blog to Huffington Post.
Michael Goldstrom is a Juilliard-trained actor and comedian. He has appeared on Comedy Central, HBO, A&E, NBC, and ABC, as well as on and off Broadway. A native of San Francisco, Goldstrom currently lives in Los Angeles.
Julia Whelan, winner of twelve AudioFile Earphones Awards, won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Romance Narration in 2013 and was twice a finalist for an Audie in 2015. She is a former child actor who has appeared in multiple films and television shows, most notably ABC's Once and Again. After receiving her college degree, she returned to the film industry and is also a writer. Her audiobook credits include memoir, nonfiction, romance, supernatural thrillers, young adult, and adult fiction.