Born in Buenos Aires in 1942, Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean citizen. A supporter of Salvador Allende, he was forced into exile and has lived in the United States for many years. Since writing his legendary essay, "How to Read Donald Duck", Dorfman has built up an impressive body of work that has translated into more than thirty languages. Besides poetry, essays and novels--"Hard Rain" (Readers International, 1990), winner of the Sudamericana Award; "Widows" (Pluto Press, 1983); "The Last Song of Manuel Sendero" (Viking, 1987); "Mascara" (Viking, 1988); "Konfidenz" (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1995)--he has written plays, including "Death and the Maiden", and produced in ninety countries. He has… won various international awards, including two Kennedy Center Theatre Awards. With his son, Rodrigo, he received an award for best television drama in Britain for "Prisoners of Time" in 1996. A professor at Duke University, Dorfman lives in Durham, North Carolina.Fidel Castro led a guerrilla movement in Cuba that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959. Since then, the Cuban president has been the nemesis of ten U.S. administrations.