Ariel Dorfman?is an?Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright,?poet,?essayist, academic and human rights activist.?The?author of numerous?literary and journalistic?works in both Spanish and English?that have been translated into over 50 languages, he is the author of a play,?Death and the Maiden, which has been performed in over one hundred countries and made into a film by Roman Polanski. Among his works are the novels?Widows,?The Nanny and the Iceberg, Mascara,?and?Konfidenz; the memoirs?Heading South, Looking North?and?Feeding on Dreams; and a collection of essays,?Homeland Security Ate My Speech: Messages from the End of the World. He contributes to major papers worldwide, including the New York Times,?New York Review of Books, El País, Guardian, Le Monde and La Repubblica. His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper's, Playboy, Index on Censorship,?Guernica and many other magazines and journals. ?A prominent human rights activist, he is the Walter Hines Page Research Professor Emeritus of Literature at Duke University.