Nikkei recalls imprisonment

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: My Life and Captivity in Iran

By Roxana Saberi (New York: Harper, 2010, 321 pp., $25.99, hardcover)

By trait, reporters are to remain objective in their pursuit of truth. What happens, then, when the journalist becomes the story? Multiracial Nikkei Roxana Saberi’s “Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran” provides a fascinating and terrifying look into the political and judicial world of Iran.

Saberi writes of enduring solitary confinement and of being subjected to intimidation and a “devasta[tion of the] mind and conscience” while imprisoned in the notorious Evin Prison.

Following her false confession of espionage — which she later recanted while still in prison — Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison. She subsequently went on a hunger strike that she was committed to see through until the end.

Though once silenced by her captors’ injustice, writing “Between Two Worlds” played a part in Saberi’s healing process, she told the Nichi Bei Weekly.

The author writes eloquently of both the brutality and beauty — in bonding with cellmates, and even connecting with her guards — she experienced in Evin.

And most importantly, in telling her own story, Saberi has raised critical awareness of so many other political prisoners who remain silenced in captivity.