Tag: Just Buffalo Literary Center

Using the space between two languages … Ha Jin ventures to Buffalo

Jared Mobarak

The second installment to Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series for the 2009-2010 season saw American-Chinese author Ha Jin taking the stage. He is an interesting writer in the fact that he crafts his work with his second language, English. Not even learning it until college, where it was his fifth out of five choices to study at university, he has both adopted it and America as his home. Saying that he is in semi-exile from China, he still holds a linguistic bond to the nation even though they have…

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“The Curious Novelist” … A.S. Byatt journeys to Buffalo

Jared Mobarak

The 2009-2010 season of Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel has commenced. Attendance didn’t unfortunately sell-out the new venue at Kleinhans, but the crowd was full and above the capacity of Babeville, so the change definitely was necessary. Michael Kelleher announced that this would be the final series under the original commission from the John R. Oshei Foundation, warranting the inclusion of donation envelopes and the dire news that ticket sales wouldn’t be able to sustain the event for its planned fourth season. After all the business, however, and asking for…

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An abundance of joy … and feminism: Babel’s Isabel Allende

Jared Mobarak

The very candid, funny, and intelligent Chilean author Isabel Allende ushered in a new era for the Babel series. Being the inaugural show at the event’s new headquarters of Kleinhans Music Hall, there were even more people in attendance, many additional students, and a lot more parking closer to the venue. It is interesting that out of the first eight speakers in the series’ two year existence, I have only come in twice without any knowledge of the story, whether from reading the book, seeing a theatrical version, or both.…

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It’s a comic, not a graphic novel: Babel’s Marjane Satrapi

Jared Mobarak

I’ve finally come to the realization that the people who go to events such as Babel and another artsy affairs generally lean to the left. When tonight’s speaker, the Iranian author/artist Marjane Satrapi, relayed that this was the point where she would usually spend ten minutes bashing Bush, the crowd burst into uproarious laughter and unanimous applause. Well unanimous minus one, although I did laugh … it was funny. However, I think I was just the person Satrapi was hoping to reach when she wrote down her life’s experiences in…

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The Sri Lankan Patient: Babel’s Michael Ondaatje

Jared Mobarak

Michael Ondaatje is the kind of guy that you just want to sit back and have a conversation with. The man has a fantastic sense of humor, is totally self-deprecating, and just brings a smile to your face with each one of his own. After a brief introduction that delved into his past as well as a description of his novel of concern, The English Patient, (which just by it’s paraphrasing showed me how different the film is, being that I didn’t have a chance to read before the talk),…

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Babel returns with Chinua Achebe

Jared Mobarak

Welcome to the start of the sold out second season to Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel. Get out there and start roaming the internet and streets for scalpers because it is a series you won’t want to miss. If you thought last year’s inaugural line-up was good, you can’t fathom the heavyweights on this season’s bill. With Chinua Achebe kicking us off—his novel Things Fall Apart being a brilliant piece of literature—the ball got rolling, ushering in much of the same, but some brand new features as well. Chief among…

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Babel allows Kiran Desai to finally see The Niagara Falls

Jared Mobarak

Just Buffalo Literary Center ended their inaugural Babel series with a wonderful speech from Indian novelist Kiran Desai about her work “The Inheritance of Loss.” After a good two years speaking in front of auditoriums, relaying her manifesto to bore those in attendance to sleep, she decided to just come in and “talk in every which way” from the seat of her pants, anecdotally. Beginning with tales of her grandparents and their influence on her novel, Desai tells of how we are now all being “brought up to leave” our…

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Babel brings Buffalo a bit of St. Lucia

Jared Mobarak

If there was one writer on the Babel bill this year I really needed to see, it was Derek Walcott. This is not because I’m a huge fan or anything, I have heard just about as much about him as the other three, namely nothing. However, upon trying to read his book of poetry, I found myself at a true loss of comprehension. Maybe I need a scholastic atmosphere to know I have others around me for interpretations, but no matter how much I enjoy the art, I just have…

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Dorf does Babel

Jared Mobarak

Corny title joke aside, author and playwright Ariel Dorfman arrived for Just Buffalo Literary Center’s second of four readings in their Babel series, and he was very humorous, very political, and very approachable. When I first heard about the series, I envisioned it to be more like this entry than the last. I liked Pamuk’s lecture about the author and his duty, but it just didn’t quite touch on his work as art itself. With Dorfman, we got anecdotes, background information, the reading of novel passages and journalistic articles, and,…

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Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel

Jared Mobarak

Tonight saw the premiere of Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series. What is being billed as a yearly event, (at least for 3 years at the moment), the series sees award-winning authors coming to Buffalo for a reading. The venue is Babeville’s Asbury Hall and I must saw it is a great choice. While I can’t speak for the balcony, I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house. Holding maybe a thousand people allows for even the back row to have prime visibility towards the stage. Some…

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