Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/freed-iranian-american-describes-detention-in-tehran Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, spent 105 days in an Iranian prison on suspicion of trying to undermine the government before her release last month. She speaks of her ordeal with Gwen Ifill. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: The Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari celebrated her return home to Washington this week after spending 105 days in solitary confinement at Iran's Evin prison. The Middle East scholar was first detained last December as she attempted to return to the United States after a nine-day visit to her mother in Iran.Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was subsequently jailed from May until August. She was released after international intervention and with her mother's home put up for bail. She was never charged with a crime.Haleh Esfandiari joins us now.Welcome, and welcome home.HALEH ESFANDIARI, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be back. GWEN IFILL: To the extent that you can, describe your time in prison. HALEH ESFANDIARI: I decided, after the initial shock, that in order to survive, I have to have a routine. And I'm a very disciplined person. So how do you fill in the long hours of solitary confinement was my question.So I decided I'm going to exercise; I'm going to walk; and I'm going to write a book, a biography of my paternal grandmother and my Iranian grandmother. But I didn't want to put anything on paper. So I wrote the book in my mind, and I would edit it, rewrite chapters, rewrite passages while walking. GWEN IFILL: All in your mind? HALEH ESFANDIARI: All in my mind. I didn't put a single word on paper, but I kept on repeating it. If you repeat a book to yourself for three months, it will stay with you until then, at some stage, I'm going to put it on paper. And I wrote the book in Persian, because I want an Iranian audience to read it.And I would stop exercising at 6:00 and shower and change and start reading. I would read books between 6:00 and 10:00. And from 10:00 to 11:00, I would read newspaper. At 11:00, I would do an hour of floor exercise, and at midnight I would go to bed.