Jason Rezaian and David Remnick: Prisoner

When a Washington Post reporter was jailed as a spy for 544 days by Iranian authorities, it took a worldwide effort, from Twitter to TV to international diplomacy, to get him out. Nearly three years to the day since his release, Jason Rezaian reflects on the epic story of his confinement and recovery.

In July 2014, Jason Rezaian, the Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post, was stepping out to attend a family birthday party when he was detained in the parking garage of his apartment building by Iranian police.  What he initially thought was some kind of mixup turned into false accusations of of spying for America, incarceration for a year and a half in a high-security prison, a sham trial, and becoming a bargaining chip in negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal. 

Rezaian’s imprisonment was international news, with everyone from his brother to Anthony Bourdain lobbying on Twitter and television for his release. #FreeJason trended on social media, while pleas on his behalf reached all the way to then–Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama. Prisoner, Rezaian’s memoir published by the Anthony Bourdain Book imprint, is the journalist’s first complete and public reckoning  what he endured during those 544 days, as well as the life beforehand that brought him there, and the future he has faced since regaining his freedom. 

With New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick, Rezaian will recount the maddening circumstances that allowed him to linger in captivity, the heroic efforts that helped to free him, and the tolls that his defense of journalism extracted on himself, his career, and his family.

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