How to Read Donald Duck

Submitted by Juan Conatz on May 29, 2018

I'm not sure how I got on this particular mailing list, but OR Books is releasing/rereleasing How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart. I had never heard of this. The Wikipedia page says that it was a landmark in cultural studies and elsewhere I've read that the various Latin American dictatorships of the time banned the book. Anyone ever read this? At first I thought it was a redo of the comic, similar to that Tintin comic, Breaking Free, but this looks more like an academic essay.

R Totale

5 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by R Totale on May 29, 2018

I have! It's great (I think, it's been at least a decade since I read it), Dorfman himself is still around and offers some insightful commentary from time to time. His memoir/autobiography Heading South, Looking North (I think, something like that) is also really recommended for a firsthand account of the Pinochet coup, very much from the perspective of an Allende/UP supporter but still worthwhile, and the best book I've ever read about being bilingual. I don't think that one's out of print. Also in general it's sweet as hell that Dorfman's alive and Pinochet's dead.