Ariel Dorfman

McClennen Sophia McClennen

Description

Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope is a critical introduction to the life and work of the internationally renowned writer, activist, and intellectual Ariel Dorfman. It is the first book about the author in English and the first in any language to address the full range of his writing to date. Consistently challenging assumptions and refusing preconceived categories, Dorfman has published in every major literary genre (novel, short story, poetry, drama); adopted literary forms including the picaresque, epic, noir, and theater of the absurd; and produced a vast amount of cultural criticism. His works are read as part of the Latin American literary canon, as examples of human rights literature, as meditations on exile and displacement, and within the tradition of bilingual, cross-cultural, and ethnic writing. Yet, as Sophia A. McClennen shows, when Dorfman's extensive writings are considered as an integrated whole, a cohesive aesthetic emerges, an "aesthetics of hope" that foregrounds the arts as vital to our understanding of the world and our struggles to change it.To illuminate Dorfman's thematic concerns, McClennen chronicles the writer's life, including his experiences working with Salvador Allende and his exile from Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and she provides a careful account of his literary and cultural influences. Tracing his literary career chronologically, McClennen interprets Dorfman's less-known texts alongside his most well-known works, which include How to Read Donald Duck, the pioneering critique of Western ideology and media culture co-authored with Armand Mattelart, and the award-winning play Death and the Maiden. In addition, McClennen provides two valuable appendices: a chronology documenting important dates and events in Dorfman's life, and a full bibliography of his work in English and in Spanish.

Sujets

• Spanish
• Chile
• Chili

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 18 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822391951
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ARIEL DORFMAN

ARIEL DORFMAN

AN AESTHETICS OF HOPE

Sophia A. McClennen

9J@:฀JC>K:GH>IN฀EG:HH 9JG=6B฀6C9฀ADC9DC฀2010

2010 DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$. Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan. Typeset in Minion by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. Parts of this book previously appeared in the following: ‘‘Ariel Dorfman’’TheReviewof ContemporaryFiction21, no. 3 (2000): 81–132; ‘‘The Diasporic Subject in Ariel Dorfman’sHeading South,LookingNorth’’MELUSno. 1 (spring 2005): 169–88; ‘‘Torture and Truth in Ariel 30, Dorfman’shtaeDehtdnaenMaid,’’ forthcoming inRevistaHispánicaModerna; ‘‘BeyondDeath andtheMaiden: Ariel Dorfman’s Media Criticism and Journalism,’’ forthcoming inri-AmeatinL canResearchReview45, no. 1 (2009). Frontis photo: Julio Donoso, 2006.

THIS BOOK IS FOR

ISABEL AND SEBASTIAN,

STORYTELLERS OF DREAMS,

AND FORHENRY.

Note on Citations

Conclusion: One among Many,

Works Cited,349

Index,361

Dorfman Bibliography,295

CONTENTS.

Preface,ix

Unity to Exile (1970–90),93

Acknowledgments,xvii

3.An Aesthetics

5.I Am a Liar Who Always Tells the Truth: From

Storyteller: Dorfman’s Literary and Cultural Influences,31

Notes,333

Media Criticism and Cultural Journalism,244

Appendix 1: An Ariel Dorfman Chronology,285

4.Anything Else Would Have Tasted Like Ashes: From Popular

of Hope,60

Exile to Diaspora (1990–2005),152

280

1. The Political Is Personal,1

and Translations,xxi

2.Becoming a On

6. Creative Criticism/Critical Creativity:

Appendix 2: An Ariel

PREFACE. This book is about breaking rules. Ariel Dorfman has spent his life breaking rules—refusing to be told who he is, what he should feel, how he should write, and what it should mean. Through his work he tells his readers to ask questions, refuse definitions, and think alternatively. But, he cautions, do not do this alone. Reach out, learn about your community, connect with humanity, be full of patience and compassion, and be full of rage and resistance. Be fallible. Be courageous. Take risks. And, most important, a message he repeats again and again is that literature, the arts, and culture play an essential role in the way we understand our world and in our struggles to change it. One of the cardinal rules that Dorfman breaks is to passionately insist that art and politics are integrally connected. Dorfman’s work challenges conserva- tive views of art that suggest that it should be ‘‘free’’ of the taint of politics. Even though this debate has a long history, Dorfman has been forced to confront it repeatedly. For instance, in an exchange about the role of poetry in under- standing the Abu Ghraib torture photos, David Ball claimed that poets who ‘‘try to express horror at the practice [of torture] run the risk of writing bad poems’’ (Ball et al., 6). Dorfman responded that poetry enables a vision of torturer and victim that reveals their mutual contaminations (ibid., 7). For Dorfman, the aesthetics of engaged literature o√er the reader an opportunity