Author(s): Ariel Dorfman

Biography & Memoir

Hailed by Salman Rushdie as "one of the most important voices coming out of Latin America", the bestselling author and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman delivers a memoir excavating for the first time his profound and provocative journey as an exile. In September 1973, the military took power in Chile, and Ariel Dorfman, allied to deposed president Salvador Allende, was forced to flee for his life. Feeding on Dreams is the story of the transformative decades of exile that followed. Dorfman portrays, through visceral scenes and powerful intellect, the personal and political maelstroms underlying his migrations from Buenos Aires, on the run from Pinochet's death squads, to safe houses in Paris and Amsterdam, and eventually to America, his childhood home. And then, seventeen years after he was forced to leave, there is a yearned-for return to Chile, with an unimaginable outcome. The toll on Dorfman's wife and two sons, the "earthquake of language" that is bilingualism, and his eventual questioning of his allegiance to past and party - all these crucibles of a life in exile are revealed with wry and startling honesty. Feeding on Dreams is a passionate reminder that "we are all exiles," that we are all "threatened with annihilation if we do not find and celebrate the refuge of common humanity", as Dorfman did during his "decades of loss and resurrection".