We are excited today to share our interview with Ariel Dorfman, an Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. Professor Dorfman served as a cultural adviser to Chilean President Salvador Allende’s Chief of Staff during the last months of Allende’s presidency, and wrote a seminal critique of US cultural imperialism, How to Read Donald Duck, during this time. He was forced into exile, ending up in the United States in 1980 following the military coup led by General Pinochet in 1973.

Often dealing with historical and political themes, his books have been published in over fifty languages and his plays performed in more than one hundred countries. Death and the Maiden, his 1990 play written as Chile transitioned shakily from dictatorship to democracy, is a powerful political and psychological thriller dealing with the traumas of a country dealing with the aftermath of repressive authoritarian rule. His writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and more.

Professor Dorfman is considered one of Latin America’s greatest novelists, with historical novels such as Allegro and Konfidenz, and he is currently the Walter Hines Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke University.

We are honored to have him on the show to discuss his novel The Suicide Museum.

Show Notes

Purchase a copy of The Suicide Museum here

Credits

Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.

Cover art by Arthur Santoro.

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