Photos courtesy of Festival de Cine Derechos Humanos
Novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, critic and human rights activist. The man himself was present at the first Argentine screening of ‘A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman’ earlier this month, at Buenos Aires 10th International Human Rights Film Festival (DerHumALC).
The Exile
Bounced around the Americas his whole life, Dorfman belongs everywhere and nowhere, and is well placed to comment on the life of an exile. He was born to a Jewish family in Buenos Aires in 1942, but moved to the US with his parents, shortly after his birth. In 1954 they moved to Chile, where he lived until 1973, when Pinochet’s military coup threw him out along with all form of democratic government. He moved again to the US where he has lived ever since, teaching at Duke Univerisity in North Carolina.
“I’m an exile, not an expatriate… I am exiled from Chile. When I leave the US I am exiled from the United States too, so I have sort of embraced the idea of being exiled, and I feel at home everywhere,” he tells me.
Dorfman is eclectic; a Latin American writer, who speaks English with a North American accent and Spanish like a Chilean. His writing is avant-garde though it has enjoyed success in mainstream theatre and cinema. As he said to the Washington Post: “I thrive on contradictions…without them, I wouldn’t be able to write anything.”
The Storyteller
He has made a high-profile career retelling the history of Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile and its consequences on modern-day Chile and Latin America.
As an adviser to Allende’s chief of staff in July 1973, when the coup happened, he was an obvious political target. When General Pinochet struck on the 11th September 1973, Dorfman was lucky to escape with his life.
But as the rest of the cabinet were being executed, he was never sent for, because, as he was later told, ‘someone had to be left to tell the tale’. After a time living in the Argentine Embassy, he escaped to the US and became a political exile from Pinochet’s Chile.
The Story
‘El largo exilio de Ariel Dorfman’, as it is in Spanish, retells his extraordinary journey, and offers one man’s perspective on the golpe. The main themes, according to director Peter Raymont, are ‘exile, identity and belonging’.
At one point Dorfman recalls how copies of his first major work, ‘How to Read Donald Duck’ – which shot him straight into the limelight with its controversial look at the way Disney cartoons perpetuate US cultural imperialism – were being burned in the street by Pinochet’s soldiers. It was at this point, he says, that he finally knew how dangerous it was for him to remain in Chile.
We see how, despite everything, he is not bitter or hostile. “He is powerful who converts an enemy into a friend,” he tells me, and he proves it. At one point during the film, we follow Dorfman as he confronts some of Pinochet’s supporters. He watches one woman hysterically crying, mourning the recently deceased General Pinochet. He approaches the woman, but instead of berating her, he tells her that, despite having dedicated his life to standing against Pinochet, he understands her grief and is sorry for her loss.
He is forgiving and hopeful. He tells me an anecdote about an interview he had some years before, where the journalist asked him: “How, given what you have seen in your life, can you have hope?” To which he responded: “How, given what I have seen in my life, could I not have hope?”
Photos courtesy of Festival de Cine Derechos Humanos
The Playwright
Dorfman’s most famous work, ‘Death and the Maiden’, tells the story of a former torture victim, and her encounter with the man who she believes tortured and raped her. His work implicitly relates to Chile and the horrors of the dictatorship, but is not exclusive to that time. It demonstrates the ways in which torture victims deal with and try to reconstruct their lives; how they attempt to continue living, even whilst their torturers remain alive; and how difficult it is to ensure that the victim does not become the vengeful aggressor.
He has enjoyed considerable success with his work. Death and the Maiden won Dorfman the Olivier Award in 1992, and two years later Roman Polanski made it into a film casting Sigorney Weaver as the lead role, with Ben Kingsley as the torturer. His plays have shown in theatres in more than 100 countries and his works, including some of his poetry, have been translated into over 40 languages.
The Man
Dorfman’s political history, and his decision to move to, and remain in, the US, causes some interest and controversy. “The US chose me,” he says, “I didn’t have a choice.” He was chased out of Argentina by the law, and Mexico would not accept him and his family; “I like living there. I have a life there,” is his final answer.
For him, the Dirty War in Argentina and the Chilean golpe are not as comparable as you might immediately think, though he believes that ‘the pain is very similar. And the dilemmas are similar. And the grief. That’s where we meet; we meet in solidarity,’ he says.
“It’s very dangerous to make immediate comparisons… I think that the ways in which Chileans and Argentines have dealt with this is extremely, extremely different…the Argentines suffered much more intensely over a shorter period and [Chileans] suffered over a much longer one… also the Argentine military was defeated, and therefore society was able to look at itself in a much more frank way…[in Chile] we had to negotiate to have democracy.”
“Does it feel nice to be back in Buenos Aires?” I ask. “It feels wonderful. I have so many people that I love here and that love me. My parents are here, I mean they’re dead, but they’re here. It was very special for me to have the chance to talk with the Argentines.”
For his efforts I award him with a free copy of the latest edition of The Argentina Independent. His final words: “The Argentina Independent? I love it!”
