Biography
Ariel Dorfman (born Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman, 6 May 1942) is an Argentine-born Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist and academic. His family moved to the United States shortly after his birth and settled in Chile in 1954. He studied at the University of Chile, where he later taught, and served as cultural adviser to President Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973.
Following the 1973 military coup, Dorfman went into exile and has divided his time between Chile and the United States. Since 1985 he has been a professor of literature and Latin American studies at Duke University. He became a United States citizen in 2004.
Dorfman is best known for his play Death and the Maiden (1990), which he adapted with Rafael Yglesias as the screenplay for the 1994 film directed by Roman Polanski. His other works include novels, essays and the memoir Heading South, Looking North (1998).
