Acclaimed author and playwright Ariel Dorfman to deliver keynote address

Posted 01/03/01

To celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, writer and playwright Ariel Dorfman will give a keynote address titled "To Be Completely, Absolutely, and Irreversibly Bilingual: A Curse or A Blessing?" at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 15 in the Moore Theater. Free tickets are available at the Hopkins Center Box Office beginning Jan. 8.

For ticket information, call the Hopkins Center Box Office at 646-2422. For information on other events celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, call the Office of Public Programs at 646-3749.

Heralded as one of Latin America's leading writers, award-winning author and playwright Ariel Dorfman focuses on issues of political and cultural identity in his work. He is the Walter Hines Page Research Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University.

No stranger to exile, he fled from Argentina with his parents-Jews who had escaped from Eastern Europe-early in his life. He and his family moved to the United States and then Chile, where he became known as a political writer before being forced to flee again after the 1973 military coup led by Augusto Pinochet. He spent time in Europe before returning to the United States. For Dorfman, this was not traveling but enduring, as his forced movement between nations, cultures, and languages left him without a place to call home or a culture he could completely define as his own.

Dorfman explores these themes of exile and identity in many of his works. Perhaps best known for his acclaimed play Death and the Maiden, which deals with issues of torture and justice, he also has written numerous novels and political essays as well as a collection of poetry and a book of stories.

In his artfully assembled memoir, Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey, he ponders the role of language in forming identity while telling of his chilling political experiences. "I've always used language as a place of salvation," says Dorfman. "I write books. I engage in human-rights activism, and I warn people about the abuse of power."

In May Dorfman's newest novel, Blake's Therapy, will be published simultaneously in the two languages in which it was written, English and Spanish. To the author's knowledge, this has not happened before in the United States.

"One of the greatest living Latin American novelists" (Newsweek), writer Ariel Dorfman probes the mysteries of life as he continues to search for political and cultural identity in reality as well as fiction. Dorfman was forced to flee his homeland in 1973 because he feared for his life. He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed play Death and the Maiden. After winning the Olivier Award for best play in London, it was directed for the screen by Roman Polanski and starred Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley.

In his artfully assembled memoir, Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey, readers can learn of Dorfman's own chilling political adventures while once again reveling in his prose.

... as he demonstrates so effectively, the bilingual battle is not just one of language but of politics. The battle between north and south has found its way into much of Dorfman's work.... We are fortunate to have a writer who can speak-in Spanish or in English-with such clarity of vision."

-LA TIMES Book Review