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20 Apr BABEL: Junot Díaz Categories: Official JB Events Timelines: 2: BABEL Archive, Just Buffalo History (2010s)

Posted at 21:51h in by

Junot Diaz - BABEL - Just Buffalo Literary Center - Buffalo, NY

Where:
Kleinhans Music Hall
3 Symphony Circle
Buffalo, NY 14201
Date: Friday, April 20, 2018
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Patron VIP Reception: 7:00 p.m.

About the Author
Finally, in April, we will close out the 11th season of BABEL with MacArthur “genius” Junot Díaz.

Born in the Dominican Republic, Díaz immigrated to New Jersey when he was 6 years old. As a non-native speaker, Díaz mastered the English language as a young boy by reading—walking four miles, each way, to his public library to immerse himself in the world of books. Now a Professor of Writing at MIT, his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earned him a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, and was named TIME Magazine’s Best Book of the Year. More recently, critics named this bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny portrait of a multigenerational family with its “mash-up of Dominican history, comics, sci-fi, [and] magic realism” “the best novel of the 21st century to date.”

(Photograph of Junot Díaz © Nina Subin)

About the Book
Junot Diaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - BABEL - Just Buffalo Literary Center - Buffalo, NY
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

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Discussion Questions

Download the Reader’s Guide (provided by Penguin RandomHouse).

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Buy Tickets

Single event tickets are good for one BABEL event at Kleinhans for the 2017-2018 season. VIP Patron Tickets include preferred seating and access to a pre-event catered reception at Kleinhans, attended by the author of the evening. After each event, all ticket holders enjoy an interview-style Q&A moderated by Artistic Director Barbara Cole, and may have their books signed by the author.

  • General Admission: $35
  • General Admission (Student Discount): $10
  • General Admission (Library Card Discount): $30
  • VIP Patron: *SOLD OUT*

Buy Junot Díaz BABEL Tickets

Buy 2017–2018 Season Tickets

Season Subscription tickets are good for all four of the BABEL events at Kleinhans for the 2017–2018 season. VIP Patron Tickets include preferred seating and access to a pre-event catered reception at Kleinhans, attended by the author of the evening. After each event, all ticket holders enjoy an interview-style Q&A moderated by Artistic Director Barbara Cole, and may have their books signed by the author.

  • General Admission (Single): $110
  • General Admission (Pair): $190
  • General Admission (3+): $95 each
  • VIP Patron (Single): *SOLD OUT*
  • VIP Patron (Pair): *SOLD OUT*

Buy BABEL Season Tickets