Democracy, freedom, lies, memory and torture; if Ariel Dorfman ever thought he’d leave debate about those things behind when he fled Chile for exile, he was wrong. Those topics have been his constant companion over three decades in Chile the US and back.

Under Chile’s elected socialist president Salvador Allende, Dorfman served as Cultural Advisor. On September 11, 1973, when Allende’s government was crushed by a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet and backed by the CIA, Dorfman was one of only a handful of Allende’s inner circle to survive. He was saved at the last minute, he discovered later, by a colleague who decided someone needed to live to tell the world.

So that was Dorfman’s promise to the dead: he’d tell their stories. And that’s just what he’s done, in books and plays and poems. Dorfman is the author of numerous books, plays and essays including Death and the Maiden, and my own favorite, the Last Song of Manuel Sendero. He currently teaches at Duke University. Today a new film about his life: A Promise To The Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman is opening the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York City. The film festival runs through June 26.