Read Excerpt: 'Between Two Worlds' by Roxana Saberi

For nearly five months, 31-year-old journalist Roxana Saberi was detained in Iran following charges of espionage.

In "Between Two Worlds," Saberi chronicles her experiences from being captured, to solidary confinement, interrogations, sentenced to eight years in prison and finally reuniting with her family.

Check out an excerpt of the book below, then head to the "GMA" Library for other great reads.

Chapter Three I had been to, or rather, outside Evin, once before.

An Iranian friend had insisted on driving me past the prison, which was located on a hill in an upper-class neighborhood of northern Tehran, close to the Alborz Mountains. I had asked him not to linger: Just seeing its tall walls and barbed wire made me tense, and I suspected that cameras were recording video of anyone in the vicinity. Now, as our car pulled up to the prison gate, I could no longer deny the reality of what was happening to me. For the first time that day, I felt truly terrified. Some people come here and never leave.

"I don't understand why you are bringing me here," I said to the Mailman, who was sitting beside me in the backseat of the car.

"Don't worry," he said with a sly smile. "If you prove your innocence,you'll be set free."

amazon.com

Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran

"Why should I prove my innocence?" I asserted. "A person is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. If I am guilty, you are the ones who have to prove it."

The man shrugged and turned his head away.

A guard waved us through the blue metal gate. We drove up a winding road and parked in front of a brick building, where I was told to get out of the car. Tasbihi gave me a dirty white blindfold and ordered me to cover my eyes. He told me to pull the cloth just high enough so I could see his black shoes in front of me. I followed him into the building, groping the walls as I stumbled down a hallway and up a flight of stairs. I trembled, thinking of how many thousands of prisoners had been detained, tortured, and executed in this prison since it was built by Mohammad Reza Shah in the 1970s and expanded after the Islamic Revolution.

At the top of the stairs, Tasbihi told me to face a wall. I heard him ring a buzzer. Then came the sound of a heavy door opening. A frosty hand seized my wrist and pulled me inside a corridor. The door banged shut behind me. "Remove your blindfold," a woman whispered to me.

I did as I was told. Standing before me was a solemn-faced, heavyset woman wearing round glasses and a black chador. She must have been a guard. She guided me down a quiet, brightly-lit corridor past five or six steel doors on the left. We stopped in front of the last one, which stood open. "Go in," she murmured.

I entered a small cell with lime green walls and a thin, worn-out brown carpet. The room was lit by one dim, yellow lightbulb.

"Remove all your clothes," the woman directed me.

I took off my headscarf and roopoosh, then stopped and looked at her. I wondered whether she was going to turn around or keep staring at me.

"Go ahead," she said, remaining glued to her spot with her eyes wide open.

I stripped down to my underwear.

"Take that off, too," she said.