Timeline

1942—The author is born not only into this world but also into a Spanish language that eagerly welcomes him to his native Buenos Aires.

1945—The author loses his Spanish and gains English upon arriving in New York, as he follows his family into the first of many exiles.

1954—The author must leave his beloved United States at the age of twelve because his father is persecuted by Senator Joseph McCarthy. In Chile, Spanish and the revolution and, eventually, a charmed woman called Angélica Malinarich await him.

1960—The author decides not to return to the States to study on a scholarship but to remain in Chile, though he will continue to write in English.

1964—The author raucously participates in the presidential campaign of the socialist Salvador Allende. Allende loses, but the stage is set for another attempt by the same coalition six years later.

1966—The author, having graduated from the University of Chile with a degree in literature, marries Angélica.

1967—The author and Angélica have their first son, Rodrigo, and also celebrate Ariel's becoming a Chilean citizen.

1968–69—The author and his family spend a year and a half as a research scholar in Berkeley, California. He reaches a drastic conclusion: to no longer write in English, the language of empire, but in Spanish, the language of insurrection.

1970—The author dances on the streets of Santiago when Salvador Allende wins the presidency and starts a peaceful revolution that will be met with escalating violence by its enemies. The author combines his political activism with a flurry of writing, including a novel, in Spanish, which garners a major literary award.

1973—The author manages to survive the military coup that ends Chile's democracy and Allende's life. After several weeks spent underground, he is ordered to seek asylum by the Resistance. Against his will, he goes into exile, arriving in Argentina at the end of the year.

1974—The author and his family must flee Buenos Aires and its death squads. After visits to Lima and Havana, they end up in Paris.

1976—The author, after two and a half miserable years in France, accepts a post at the University of Amsterdam and embarks on a creative writing splurge after a long period of silence. Before leaving Holland, he will have written four books in four different genres: essays, poems, short stories, and a novel, as well as numerous magazine articles.

1979—The author and Angélica have their second child, Joaquín, and plan their next move, to Mexico, in order to wait out the dictator, who seems to have consolidated his hold on Chile.

1980—The author and his family leave Amsterdam for what is presumably a year in Washington, D.C.

1981—The author is denied a resident visa to Mexico and must stay in the United States and live off his writing as well as other odd jobs.

1982—The author writes an op-ed for the New York Times, the first time he has published anything in English.

1983—The author and his family get green cards that allow them to remain legally in the United States; a few months later, Pinochet announces that the subversive Ariel Dorfman may now come home. Two days after that, the family arrives in a Chile that is in the throes of a massive revolt. This fifteen-day visit will be followed, in the years to come, by other returns, as Ariel and Angélica explore the possibility of permanently resettling in Chile.

1986—The author and his family move to Durham, North Carolina, after reaching an agreement with Duke University to teach one semester a year. This contract will allow Ariel to travel to Chile and buy a house there while making his living abroad for the next three years. He is in Santiago when Rodrigo Rojas, a young Chilean expatriate, is burned alive by the military. Back in the States, Ariel spearheads a campaign against Pinochet.

1987—The author and Joaquín are arrested at the Santiago airport and deported. As a result of international pressure, Ariel is allowed back two weeks later, but a definite homecoming is postponed.

1988—The author participates actively in the Chilean plebiscite that will decide whether General Pinochet will continue as president for life. The victory of the democratic opposition starts the slow countdown to the end of the dictatorship.

1989—The author again returns to Chile, to vote for Patricio Aylwin for the presidency and sets in motion plans to go back permanently next year. Rodrigo, now twenty-two years old, decides to return right away.

1990—The author goes back to Chile with Angélica and Joaquín. Although he shies away from creative fiction and public appearances, Ariel writes a journal about the return that he has been dreaming of for seventeen years. He also writes La Muerte y la Doncella, and the day after finishing the play, he starts on an English version that will have its first reading in London at the end of the year.

1991—The author and his family leave Chile for good after spending six months there. Death and the Maiden proves to be extraordinarily successful, both as a play and as a film, directed by Roman Polanski.

1996—The author begins to write his memoir Heading South, Looking North. He continues to visit Chile from time to time.

1997—The author is on a trip to South Africa when he receives the news of his mother's death in Buenos Aires. He is too far away to attend her funeral.

1998—The author is astounded to hear that General Pinochet has been arrested in London for crimes against humanity, and participates in the campaign to ensure that he is brought to trial. After eighteen months under house arrest, the General is flown back to Chile.

1999—The author is in Durham for the birth of Isabella, the child of Rodrigo and his wife, Melissa. Three years later, Catalina, their second child, enters this world. The delight of Ariel and Angélica in their granddaughters cannot be exaggerated.

2001—The author witnesses on TV the terror attacks on New York. This is his second September 11 and will determine much of his writing and activism in the years to come.

2003—The author learns of his father's death in Argentina, which occurs on the same day that the United States invades Iraq. Ariel is able to fly to Buenos Aires in time for the funeral. Angélica was at Adolfo Dorfman's side when he died.

2006—The author becomes an American citizen and later in the year travels to Buenos Aires, Santiago, and New York to film A Promise to the Dead, a documentary based on his life. During the visit to Chile, General Pinochet dies. That trip is the catalyst for Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile.

2008—The author votes for Barack Obama for president of the United States.

2010–11—The author finishes the manuscript of this book. It has been forty years since Allende's triumph and twenty years since Ariel definitively left a Chile where he thought he would live forever. On the day he completes the new book, he begins to rewrite it in Spanish.