Ariel Dorfman Bio
Dorfman, Ariel 
(b.
1942), Ariel Dorfman, Chilean-American professor of Literature and Latin
American Studies at Duke University since 1985; playwright, political essayist,
poet, novelist.
- Dorfman's website at Duke
- He wrote the following message, included on Doug Ireland's blog:
"I owe so much
to Marcuse - he was the first one, as I can recall, who made me understand
why we had to oppose both the Soviet system and its capitalist twisted
mirror. But I simply have not a moment to spare - and if I were to write
something it should be a real reckoning trying to figure out what was so
deeply right, but also what went wrong. Or maybe simply how we misapplied
Marcuse. I have not given it much thought and should but at the moment
simply can't.
"The only reference in my work which others may find interesting in
this regard is the chapter of Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual
Journey, where I tell the story of our trip to Berkeley from pre-revolutionary
Chile in 1968-69, and then our return to Santiago to join the Allende revolution
which was about to burst onto world history. I deal in that chapter with
how deeply influenced I was by what I lived in the States (which is to
say, by those who were reading and following Marcuse), and at the same
time about how lacking I found those movements in maturity, relationship
with real workers, capacity to comprehend that radical change means engaging
vast sectors of society whose members do not seem to be immediate or obvious
allies. Part of that chapter is a way in which I hint at how sexuality
and revolution tend to have been at odds and should not be, a questioning
of the limits between personal and collective liberation."
- Publications:
Play Death and the Maiden later made into a film directed by Roman
Polanski.
Book Other Septembers, Many Americas: Selected Provocations, 1980-2004
(Seven Stories Press) is an excellent introduction to his work, exploring
the ways Americans apply amnesia to their yesterdays and innocence to their
tomorrows.
Book Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of Gen. Augusto
Pinochet, Desert Memories (National Geographic)
Coauthor with his son Joaquin of the novel The Burning City.
