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Ariel Dorfman to Deliver Mandela Lecture

Acclaimed author and human rights activist to present noted lecture

Duke professor, author and human rights activist, Ariel Dorfman, will present the Eighth Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at Johannesburg's Linder Auditorium on July 31, 2010.

Dorfman served as the cultural adviser to Salvador Allende, Chile's president from 1970 to 1973. The democratically elected Allende died during the 1973 coup, staged by Augusto Pinochet. This coup also resulted in the death and disappearance of thousands of Chileans and forced Dorfman into exile.

The author of many novels, plays, poems, essays and films will speak on the theme "Memory and Justice" at the 2010 Annual Lecture. Dorfman is the Walter Hines Page Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke.

"We are thrilled to have a speaker of the stature of Ariel Dorfman," says Achmat Dangor, Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. "His life and work speaks to what we at the Nelson Mandela Foundation are doing through our Centre of Memory and Dialogue."

Previous Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture speakers are: Nobel Peace Laureates Professor Muhammad Yunus, Professor Wangari Maathai, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Kofi Anan, former presidents Bill Clinton and Thabo Mbeki, and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.