Synopses & Reviews
In September 1973, the military took power in Chile, and Ariel Dorfman, a young leftist allied with President Allende, was forced to flee for his life. In Feeding on Dreams, Dorfman portrays, through visceral scenes and powerful intellect, the personal and political maelstroms that have defined his life since the Pinochet coup. In Buenos Aires, hes on the run from death squads. Next, still holding out hope for Chiles return to democracy, he lives in ever-rotating safe houses in Paris and Amsterdam, where his loyalty to his political party and his wifes loyalty to him are dramatically tested. Finally he finds an uneasy refuge in America, his childhood home. And then, seventeen years after he was forced to leave Chile, Pinochet is out and Dorfman goes back to live there, setting in motion an unimaginable outcome.
Dorfmans wry and masterfully told account provides a page-turning tour of the past several decades of North/South political history and of the complex consequences of revolution and tyranny. He has lived in the aftermath of revolution, and his perspective could not be more relevant today.
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.”
Review
"A beautifully crafted, searing memoir....A somber, moving tribute to a life of ideals and struggle." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"A compelling, profound portrait of shattered expectations and transformation....A work to savor for its remarkable moments and extraordinary language." Boston Globe
Review
"A beautifully crafted, searing memoir....A somber, moving tribute to a life of ideals and struggle." Kirkus Reviews
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"Gorgeously evokes his lifelong search for home, country, and belonging." Publishers Weekly
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"A multi-faceted journey that is geographical, personal and political....A complex, nuanced view of United States-Latin American politics and relations of the last 40 some years." Durham Herald-Sun
Synopsis
Hailed by Salman Rushdie as "one of the most important voices coming out of Latin America," the best-selling 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."
Synopsis
Acclaimed writer and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman delivers a memoir, tender and merciless, of his life of exile — of what it means to change deeply, because you have to.
Synopsis
Acclaimed author and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman delivers a memoir excavating, for the first time, his profound and provocative journey through revolution and exile.
“One of the most important voices coming out of Latin America.”—Salman Rushdie
“Ariel Dorfman is one of those rare, deeply feeling writers whose work is both wonderfully elegant and instilled with defiant spirit. Feeding on Dreams, his memoir of his years as an exile from Pinochets Chile and his subsequent life as a writer, is unforgettable.”—Oscar Hijuelos
“A beautifully crafted, searing memoir by the Chilean-American writer . . . A moving tribute to a life of ideals and struggle.”—Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Acclaimed author and human-rights activist Ariel Dorfman delivers a memoir excavating, for the first time, his profound and provocative journey through revolution and exile.
Synopsis
"A multifaceted journey that is geographical, personal and political . . . A complex, nuanced view of United States–Latin American politics and relations of the last forty some years." —
Durham Herald-Sun "One of the most important voices coming out of South America." — Salman Rushdie
In September 1973, the military took power in Chile, and Ariel Dorfman, a young leftist allied with President Allende, was forced to flee for his life. In Feeding on Dreams, Dorfman portrays, through visceral scenes and with startling honesty, the personal and political maelstroms that have defined his life since the Pinochet coup. Dorfman’s wry and masterfully told account takes us on a page-turning tour of the past several decades of North-South political history and of the complex consequences of revolution and tyranny, excavating for the first time his profound and provocative journey as an exile and the consequences for his wife and family.
"Fascinating." — San Francisco Examiner
"A great book that will simultaneously undo us and sustain us." — Tikkun
Synopsis
In this extraordinary memoir, Nobel Prizewinning author Günter Grass remembers his early life, from his boyhood in a cramped two-room apartment in Danzig through the late 1950s, when The Tin Drum was published.During the Second World War, Grass volunteered for the submarine corps at the age of fifteen but was rejected; two years later, in 1944, he was instead drafted into the Waffen-SS. Taken prisoner by American forces as he was recovering from shrapnel wounds, he spent the final weeks of the war in an American POW camp. After the war, Grass resolved to become an artist and moved with his first wife to Paris, where he began to write the novel that would make him famous.Full of the bravado of youth, the rubble of postwar Germany, the thrill of wild love affairs, and the exhilaration of Paris in the early fifties, Peeling the Onionwhich caused great controversy when it was published in Germanyreveals Grass at his most intimate.
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About the Author
Chilean-American author and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman's many internationally acclaimed works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction include his bestselling memoir, Heading South, Looking North, which was the basis for the documentary film A Promise to the Dead, directed by Peter Raymont and shortlisted for the Oscars in 2008. His play Death and the Maiden, staged in over 100 countries, was made into a feature film by Roman Polanski. Dorfman is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times Book Review, and Huffington Post. He is Walter Hines Page professor of literature and Latin American studies at Duke University, and his numerous international honors include his delivery of the Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg in 2010.
Table of Contents
Contents
Skins Beneath the Skin 1
Encapsulations 28
His Name Was Wedontdothat 64
How I Learned Fear 105
Guests at Table 160
At and Below the Surface 202
The Third Hunger 248
How I Became a Smoker 292 Berlin Air 344
While Cancer, Soundless 367
The Wedding Gifts I Received 395