Death and the Maiden

In an unnamed country which has only recently returned to democracy, a man who has been named to head a commission that will investigate the crimes of the previous regime is driving home one night when his car breaks down. He is rescued by an older man, a kindly doctor. But when he brings him home, his wife recognizes—or think she does—his voice as that of the man who raped and tortured her years before, while she lay blindfolded in a military detention center. Death and the Maiden , the award-winning drama from Ariel Dorfman, is a harrowing suspense thriller that investigates the slippery moral territory between the hunger for justice and thirst for revenge. Do immoral acts justify immoral retribution? And what if the target our legitimate outrage is innocent? How certain can we be of our motives—or of our own morality—when we suddenly have the opportunity to take justice into our own hands?