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Ariel DorfmanAmerican Argentine-Chilean writer, playwright, essayist, scholar and human rights activist
Date of Birth: 06.05.1942
Country:  USA |
Content:
Ariel Dorfman: Life and Legacy
Origins and EducationAriel Dorfman, an American-Argentine-Chilean writer, playwright, essayist, scholar, and human rights activist, was born in Buenos Aires on May 6, 1942. His parents, Adolfo Dorfman and Fanny Zelikovich Dorfman, were Jewish immigrants from Odessa (then Russian Empire) and Kishinev (Bessarabia), respectively. Shortly after Dorfman's birth, his family moved to the United States, where he spent his first ten years in New York City before political tensions forced their relocation.
In 1954, the Dorfmans settled in Chile. Dorfman studied and later taught as a professor at the University of Chile, married Angelica Malinowik in 1966, and became a Chilean citizen in 1967. From 1968 to 1969, he pursued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to Chile.
Career
From 1970 to 1973, Dorfman served as cultural advisor to President Salvador Allende. During this time, he co-authored "How to Read Donald Duck" with Armand Mattelart, a criticism of North American cultural imperialism. After Allende's overthrow, Dorfman lived in Paris, Amsterdam, and Washington, D.C. Since 1985, he has been teaching at Duke University, where he is currently the Walter Hines Page Professor of Literature and Professor of Latin American Studies.
Dorfman was a member of "Group 88," a group of individuals who signed a controversial advertisement in The Chronicle, Duke's student newspaper, during the Duke lacrosse case.
Literary Works
Dorfman's works often explore the horrors of tyranny and, in later works, the trials of exile. In an interview with BOMB Magazine, Dorfman said, "I'm constantly trying to figure out how to be faithful to an experience that very few people in the world actually understand, like when most of your friends disappear or are tortured, and at the same time find a way to tell this story so other people in other places can read their own lives in it."
His most famous play, "Death and the Maiden," depicts the encounter between a former torture victim and the man she believes tortured her; it was adapted into a 1994 film by Roman Polanski starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley. Dorfman has identified Chile's "abrupt and painful transition to democracy" as a central theme in "Death and the Maiden." The play was revived for its 20th anniversary in the 2011-2012 season at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End, directed by Jeremy Herrin and starring Thandie Newton, Tom Goodman-Hill, and Anthony Calf. In 2020, a second English-language film adaptation, "The Secrets We Keep," was released, directed by Yuval Adler and written by Adler and Ryan Covington, starring Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, and Chris Messina.
Dorfman's dissertation on the absurd in Harold Pinter's plays was published in Spanish as "El absurdo entre cuatro paredes: el teatro de Harold Pinter" (Absurdity within Four Walls: The Theater of Harold Pinter) by Editorial Universitaria in Santiago, Chile, in 1968 (124 pages). Pinter later became a personal friend and influenced Dorfman's both his writing and his political thinking.
A critic of Pinochet, Dorfman has written extensively on the general's extradition case for the Spanish newspaper El País and other publications, as well as in the book "Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet." Rather than distinguishing between politics and art, Dorfman believes that "writing is profoundly political" and, at its best, "touches the essential dilemmas...of the communities."
Dorfman's works have been translated into over 40 languages and performed in more than 100 countries. In addition to poetry, essays, and novels—including the South American Prize-winning "Hard Rain"; "Widows"; "Manuel Sendero's Last Song"; "Mascara"; "Confidences"; "The Nanny and the Iceberg"; and "Blake's Therapy"—he has written short stories, including "My House Is on Fire," and non-fiction, including "The Empire's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds."
He has received numerous international awards, including two Kennedy Center Theater Awards. In 1996, together with his son Rodrigo, he received the Best British Television Drama award for the film "Prisoners in Time." His poetry, collected in "Last Waltz in Santiago" and "In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land," has been made into a half-hour animated film, "Deadline," featuring the voices of Emma Thompson, Bono, Harold Pinter, and others.
Human Rights Advocacy
Dorfman's human rights play "Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark" (based on interviews with human rights defenders conducted by Kerry Kennedy Cuomo) premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2000 and was subsequently broadcast on PBS as part of its Great Performances series. The performance featured Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Alec Baldwin, and John Malkovich, among others, and was directed by Greg Mosher. It has been performed worldwide, including in New York City. On May 3, 2010, The Public Theater in New York City, under the direction of David Esbjörn, held a benefit performance of "Speak Truth to Power" for survivors of the 2010 Chile earthquake, featuring Elias Koteas, Marcia Gay Harden, and stars including Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Gloria Reuben, Paul Sorvino, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Debra Winger.
Dorfman's play "Purgatorio" (Purgatory) premiered at the New National Theatre in Tokyo in 2004 and opened Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2005; "Picasso's Closet," a fictional story in which the Nazis assassinate Picasso, premiered at the Jüdisches Theater in Vienna in 2005 and at Theater J in Washington, D.C., in 2006.
He is also the subject of a feature-length documentary film, "The Promise to the Dead: Ariel Dorfman's Journey into Exile," based on his memoir "Heading South, Looking North" and directed by Peter Raymont. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007 on September 8, 2007. In November 2007, the film was named as one of 15 films shortlisted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the Documentary Feature Oscar. On January 22, 2008, the list was narrowed down to five films, and "The Promise to the Dead" was not among the five documentaries nominated for an Oscar.
Among his recent works are the travelogue "Memories of the Future"; the essay collection "Other Septembers, Many Americas"; and the novel "Darwin's Ghosts," which he co-wrote with his children.
