Ariel Dorfman

Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman (born May 6, 1942) is an Argentine-Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985. Dorfman was born in Buenos Aires on May 6, 1942, the son of Adolf Dorfman, who was born in Odessa, a prominent Argentine professor of economics and the author of Historia de la Industria Argentina, and Fanny Zelicovich Dorfman, whose roots were Romanian-Moldovan Jews. Shortly after his birth, they moved to the United States and then, in 1954, moved to Chile. He attended and later worked as a professor at the University of Chile, marrying...