DISCUSSION GUIDE

Shane ABOUT THE BOOK

Three young Americans captured by Iranian
Bauer forces and held in captivity for two years tell
their story. In summer 2009, Shane Bauer,
Joshua Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd were hiking
in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly
Fattal crossed into Iran and were captured by a
border patrol. Accused of espionage, the
three Americans ultimately found them-
Sarah selves in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison,
Shourd where they discovered that pooling their
strength of will and relying on each other
were the only ways they could survive.
In this poignant memoir, “the hikers” finally
tell their side of the story. They recount
the deception that lured them into Iran in
the first place and describe the psycholog-
A SLIVER OF LIGHT

ical torment of interrogation and solitary

confinement. We follow them as they make
surprising alliances with their fellow pris-
oners and even some of their captors, while
their own bonds with each other are tested
and deepened. Told through a bold and in-
novative interweaving of the authors’ three
voices, here is a rare glimpse inside Iran and
a timeless portrayal of hardship and hope.

PRE-READING ACTIVITIES
Ask readers to share what they know about Iran and diplomatic relations between Iran and the
United States.
Use atlases or maps to locate the Kurdistan region in the Middle East and the border area where the
three Americans are taken prisoner. Find the locations of Tehran and Oman.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
These discussion questions align with Standards 1 and 2 of the Common Core Reading Standards
for Literature K–12 (RL).
1. Where do the Americans think they are when they are taken into custody?
2. Do you think the Iranians tricked the Americans into crossing the border? Would you have gone
Three over to the soldier who waved to them? What do you think might have happened if they ignored
Americans the soldier?
3. What thoughts go through the minds of the Americans after they are taken into custody? What
Imprisoned would go through your mind under similar circumstances?
in Iran 4. When the interrogator asks the Americans who sent them and what their mission is in Iran, what
is the implication? Why does the interrogator insist they write their answers?
 5. Why is it potentially perilous for Josh to be Jewish?
6. How is the treatment of the Americans reflective of the diplomatic relations between Iran and
the United States?
Shane
7. What belongings do the Americans have that the Iranians consider suspicious?
Bauer 8. Describe the conduct of the interrogators toward the Americans. What are some examples of the
interrogation techniques they use?
Joshua 9. What “proof ” do the Iranians claim to have of Shane’s connection to U.S. intelligence agencies?
Fattal 10. What is surprising about the young female guard who comes to Sarah’s cell?
11. Why does Sarah enjoy talking to the interrogator she calls “Father Figure”?
Sarah 12. How does the incident of the taking away and return of his books by the guard he calls “Friend”
Shourd affect Josh?
13. What does Shane mean when he says: “Time here [in Evin Prison] becomes different from
anything I’ve ever known” (78)?
14. How does Sarah feel when she returns to the United States?
15. What impression do you get of President Ahmadinejad from Sarah’s description of her
encounter with him?
A SLIVER OF LIGHT

16. How is Sarah being disingenuous when she tells President Obama, “After we were captured . . .
my one consolation was the fact that you were in office” (203)?
17. What is the ritual Josh, Shane, and Sarah have to keep connected to one another and to the
outside world? Why is it especially important to maintain rituals when incarcerated and
isolated? If you were in a similar situation, what rituals do you think would help sustain you?
18. How do the small acts of defiance by the prisoners help them cope with their incarceration?
What do the guards and interrogators do to discourage defiance?
19. Sarah says: “In this environment, sanity means balancing on a tightrope between acceptance
and resistance” (123). What are examples of how she, Josh, and Shane are able to maintain
this balance?
20. What is Sarah’s reaction to learning about the death of Zahra Bahrami?
21. In what way is the orphaned bird the guard gives to Josh and Shane to care for symbolic of
their situation?
22. What does being out of his cell help Shane realize about himself?
23. Compare and contrast how each of the three Americans cope with her/his incarceration.
In what ways do they support one another?
24. What difficulties do Josh and Shane encounter when they are imprisoned together in the
same cell?
25. Describe how Sarah’s treatment as a woman is different from that of Josh and Shane. How
is Sarah’s treatment reflective of the status of women in Iran?
26. Describe how the three Americans become pawns in Iran-U.S. diplomatic relations.
Three
27. How does the campaign to have Josh and Shane released evolve into an international effort?
Americans
28. What surprises you most about how Josh, Sarah, and Shane are treated by guards and
Imprisoned interrogators? How do you think Iranian citizens would be treated differently?

in Iran 29. What impressions of Islam does this story leave with you?
 POST-READING ACTIVITIES
Using print and electronic resources for your research, create a timeline identifying events that have
affected relations between Iran and the United States.
Shane
Write an essay explaining how this story illustrates the resilience of the human spirit. Would these
Bauer three people have been as able to survive their ordeal had they experienced it alone?
In the epilogue, Shane says there are political prisoners in the United States. He cites Bradley
Joshua Manning as one example and the detainees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay as another. Edward
Snowden, now living in exile in Russia, would be arrested if he returned to United States and could
Fattal also be considered a political prisoner. Use print and electronic resources to research one of these
subjects and write an essay in which you explain why or why not these people can be considered
Sarah political prisoners.

Shourd
RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING
Axworthy, Michael. A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind. Basic Books, 2008.
Bowden, Mark. Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America’s
War with Militant Islam. Grove, 2006.
Crist, David. The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran.
A SLIVER OF LIGHT

Penguin, 2012.
Delijani, Sahar. Children of the Jacaranda Tree. Atria, 2013.
Ebadi, Shirin. Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope. Random House, 2006.
Leverett, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett. Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must
Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2013.
Nemat, Marina. Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir. Free Press, 2007.
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. Pantheon, 2007.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

SHANE BAUER is an investigative journalist and photographer. He has reported from locations such
as Iraq, Sudan, Chad, Syria, Yemen, Israel/Palestine, and California’s Pelican Bay supermax prison.
He has written for Mother Jones, The Nation, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chron-
icle, the Christian Science Monitor, and others. He has received the Hillman Prize for Magazine
Journalism, the John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Award for Criminal Justice Reporting, and many other
national awards. He was also a finalist in the Livingston Award for journalists under 35.
SARAH SHOURD is a writer, educator, and contributing dditor 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 sweat-
shop workers in Juárez, 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 U.S. prisons and jails. She has written for the New York Times, the San Francisco
Three Chronicle, CNN, and Newsweek/Daily Beast, and contributes a blog to Huffington Post.
Americans A graduate of Berkeley’s program in environmental economics and policy, JOSHUA FATTAL is an
activist and organizer focused on sustainable development. He has spoken at universities, human
Imprisoned rights conferences, and private events to describe the experience of imprisonment in Iran.
in Iran
Guide written by Edward T. Sullivan, a freelance writer and librarian.