When: Wednesday, October 5, 4:00 PM
Where: Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library

Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, journalist, and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman will read from his new memoir, Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). This is the sequel to his award-winning book, Heading South, Looking North, which was the basis for the documentary A Promise to the Dead, short-listed for the Oscars in 2009.

Dorfman is one of the world’s most politically engaged contemporary authors. Once a member of Salvador Allende’s administration in Chile, he went into exile when Augusto Pinochet seized power in 1973. Since then, his writings have often examined human rights abuses, the impact of totalitarian governments and ideology on individuals, and the experience of life in exile.

About the Author 
Ariel Dorfman holds the Walter Hines Page Chair of Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University. His books, written both in Spanish and English, have been translated into more than 40 languages. Among his plays, which have been staged in over 100 countries, is Death and the Maiden, which will be revived on London’s West End with Thandie Newton in the title role. His new play, Purgatorio, will have its Spanish-language premiere in Madrid this fall starring Viggo Mortensen. For more information, visit his website.

Reception to follow. Copies of the book will be available for sale. This event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by Duke University Libraries, the Center for International Studies, the Duke Human Rights Center, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

• Aaron Welborn
• aaron.welborn@duke.edu
• 919-660-5816