Ariel Dorfman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ariel Dorfman (born May 6, 1942 Buenos Aires) is a Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist.
Dorfman, who is Jewish, was born in Argentina but his family moved to the United States shortly after his birth, and then moved to Chile in 1954. He attended and was later a professor at the University of Chile and adopted Chilean Citizenship in 1967.
From 1970 to 1973, Dorfman was part of the administration of president Salvador Allende. He was forced into exile following the military coup in which General Augusto Pinochet came to power.
Since 1985 he has taught at Duke University, where he is currently Walter Hines Page Research Professor of Literature and Professor of Latin American Studies.
Since the restoration of democracy in Chile (1990), he divides his time between Santiago and the United States.
Dorfman's work often deals with the horrors of tyranny and, in later works, the trials of exile. His most famous play, Death and the Maiden, described the encounter of a former torture victim with the man she believed tortured her; it was made into a film in 1994 by Roman Polanski starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley.
Dorfman, a critic of Pinochet, has written extensively about his extradition case for the Spanish newspaper El País and other publications.
He is also the subject of a feature-length documentary, "A Promise to the Dead," directed by Peter Raymont. The film had its world premiere at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8th, 2007. (In November 2007, the film was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films on its documentary feature Oscar shortlist. The list was narrowed to five films on January 22, 2008,[1] and "A Promise to the Dead" was not among the five Oscar-nominated documentaries.)
Dorfman also is one of the "Duke 88." These are the professors who, in the wake of the Lacrosse players scandal, signed a letter calling for a wide on campus discussion about the way the Duke Community viewed race and gender. The letter was then published as a full page ad in local newspapers and reprinted across the country. The charges against the players were eventually dismissed and the District Attorney, Michael Nifong who prosecuted the case was disbarred. Ariel Dorfman did not support Nifong's reelection.
[edit] Selected books
- How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic (with Armand Mattelart) ISBN 0-88477-023-0
- Widows (1983) ISBN 1-58322-483-1
- The Last Song of Manuel Sendero (1988) 0140088962
- Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey (1999) ISBN 0-14-028253-X
- Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of Augusto Pinochet (2002) ISBN 1-58322-542-0
- Burning City (with Joaquin Dorfman) (2006) ISBN 0-375-83204-1
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Ariel Dorfman's website
- Ariel Dorfman's memoir, Heading South, Looking North
- Ariel Dorfman at the Internet Movie Database
- Death and the Maiden at the Internet Movie Database
- Peter Raymont director of A Promise to the Dead
- feature documentary on Ariel Dorfman's experiences of exile
- 1988 interview with Ariel Dorfman by Don Swaim at Wired for Books.
- Ariel Dorfman Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
