Shane Bauer is an award-winning investigative journalist and photographer based in Oakland, California. A fluent speaker of Arabic, his work has largely focused on the Middle East and North Africa. From 2009-2011 Shane was held hostage in Iran with his now wife Sarah Shourd and friend Josh Fattal, with whom he is currently writing a book. Seven months after his release from Iranian prison, he went back behind the wire to investigate solitary confinement in California. His articles have appeared in Mother Jones magazine, The Nation, the L.A. Times, Salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications.