Tag: Orhan Pamuk

Don’t let *blank expletive blank* affect your inner calm … Babel’s Amy Tan

Jared Mobarak

As Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s Laurie Dean Torrell went through her thank yous before Artistic Director Barbara Cole’s introduction of the night’s speaker, she gave us a statistic that posited how ticket sales for the event only fulfilled about a third of the costs incurred to produce it. While I’m sure it was an accurate breakdown, I couldn’t help look around at the packed lower level of Kleinhans Music Hall and remember how far Babel has grown since the less than one thousand people who packed into Babeville’s Asbury Hall…

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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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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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