1942–, Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, journalist and human rights activist, b. Argentina. Dorfman’s family moved to the United States shortly after his birth, settling in Chile in 1954. He attended and was a professor at the Univ. of Chile. Forced into exile following the Chilean military coup of 1973, he has divided his time between Santiago and the United States since the restoration (1990) of democracy in his homeland; since 1985 he has taught at Duke Univ. Dorfman has written powerful fiction often dealing with the horrors of tyranny and, in later works, the trials of exile.