Konfidenz

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Overview

A woman enters a room. The phone rings. A male voice on the other end of the line seems to know everything about her, down to the most intimate details. Someone is watching. The woman has just fled her homeland, but the whereabouts of her lover, Martin, remain a mystery. Is Martin in danger? Can the voice on the phone be trusted? Is she telling the truth? Has Martin betrayed his country, or his cause, or her? A tense, political allegory that inevitably challenges our assumptions about character, the foundations ...
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More About This Book

Overview

A woman enters a room. The phone rings. A male voice on the other end of the line seems to know everything about her, down to the most intimate details. Someone is watching. The woman has just fled her homeland, but the whereabouts of her lover, Martin, remain a mystery. Is Martin in danger? Can the voice on the phone be trusted? Is she telling the truth? Has Martin betrayed his country, or his cause, or her? A tense, political allegory that inevitably challenges our assumptions about character, the foundations of our knowledge, and the making of history, Konfidenz stands as Ariel Dorfman's most fully realized fiction to date.

A chilling novel of trust and betrayal--and a tense, political allegory--by the highly acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden, Konfidenz confirms Ariel Dorfman's reputation as "one of the most important voices coming out of Latin America" (Salman Rushdie). Publication to coincide with Roman Polanski's film of Death and the Maiden, starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley.

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Editorial Reviews

The Washington Post
With KONFIDENZ, Dorfman steps confidently . . . into the arena of a world novelist of the first category.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
The gifted and versatile Dorfman's new novel, written almost entirely in dialogue, develops an almost unbearable intensity as it charts the relationship between its two principal characters in a time setting that is deliberately left vague. A woman, Barbara, has been brought to Paris to see Martin, her lover. At her hotel, she takes a phone call from Leon, who claims to be Martin's friend and informs her that her lover is doing resistance work and could soon be in great danger. During a series of phone calls that lasts for nine hours, alliances shift and the nature of the men's political mission becomes both more and, paradoxically, less clear. Leon, a skilled manipulator, seduces Barbara with words, yet he clearly wants something from her that isn't entirely sexual. By the time their political and personal situations are entirely obvious to the reader, nothing is as it first seemed. A political novel as well as an acute study in character and obsession, complete with interspersed commentary apparently addressed to the reader and the novelist equally, this brief, tightly constructed work addresses multiple themes. Dorfman uses the tension of an unstable political situation to force the reader into questioning his characters' stated truths, as well as their motivations. Exhilarating for its finely tuned unfolding but somber in its conclusions, Konfidenz demands a fundamental reexamination of the nature of trust. (Jan.)
Library Journal
Novels by Chilean exile Dorfman (e.g., Mascara, LJ 9/15/88) have earned warm reviews. But most people probably know him best as the author of the Broadway play Death and the Maiden (LJ 4/15/92), whose screen version-starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley-also debuts this January. Here, a woman who has fled her homeland finds that she is being stalked.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781564782939
  • Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
  • Publication date: 6/15/2003
  • Series: Latin American Literature Series
  • Edition description: First Dalkey Archive Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 177
  • Product dimensions: 6.54 (w) x 8.02 (h) x 0.56 (d)

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