From 1970 to 1973, Dorfman served as a cultural adviser to President Salvador Allende. During this time he wrote, with Armand Mattelart, a critique of North American cultural imperialism, "How to Read Donald Duck". Dorfman was supposed to work on the night shift at the La Moneda presidential palace the night before the Pinochet coup, but he had swapped his shift with his friend Claudio Jimeno, not knowing what was to come. Forced to leave Chile in 1973, after the coup by General Augusto Pinochet leading to the Death of Salvador Allende at the Presidential Palace on Sept. 11, 1973, Dorfman went on to live in Paris, Amsterdam, and Washington, D.C. Since 1985 he has taught at Duke University, where he is currently Walter Hines Page Research Professor of Literature and Professor of Latin American Studies.