BABEL: Buffalo Host World Famous Authors

Just Buffalo Literary Center’s acclaimed BABEL series brings four of the world’s most important authors to Buffalo each year, engaging local audiences, attracting guests from across the country and Canada, and creating a global literary conversation right here at home.

The very name of the series is inspired by that ancient tale of a world shattered and confused, people unable to speak to one another. How to explain the inexplicable? This is the gift of great literature: offering us not simple answers, but lasting enigmas that challenge us to speak even when we have no words.

And BABEL is more than a lecture series. For every author, we organize a full spectrum of events, including book discussions led by local experts at Betty’s Restaurant in downtown Buffalo, screenings of film adaptations and documentaries relevant to the selected books, and special events for high school and college students to meet the authors in an intimate setting.