Beyond Death and the Maiden: Ariel Dorfman's Media Criticism and Journalism

Abstract

Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart's Para leer al Pato Donald (How to Read Donald Duck) is considered one of the most significant works of Latin American cultural criticism. Despite the significance of Donald Duck to the history of Latin American cultural criticism and to Dorfman's own trajectory as a writer, thus far, critical studies of Dorfman tend to gloss his essays, ignore his journalism, and focus solely on his literature, especially on his play La muerte y la doncella (Death and the Maiden). While the attention to Death and the Maiden is certainly well founded, it is worth considering how these two works complement each other in Dorfman's career, given the apparent lack of a shared aesthetic between the playful cultural criticism of Donald Duck and the sparse language of Death and the Maiden. In fact, attending to Donald Duck and Dorfman's other nonfiction texts reveals the ways that he has worked across styles and genres on a series of central issues that form the core of his work. As a complement to research on Dorfman's literary production, this article focuses on his media criticism and his journalism, two areas of his work that have received the least critical attention, to suggest that Dorfman's literary production must be understood as part of a larger project, one that includes his essays, journalism, and other cultural activities.

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