Everybody. Hello, everyone. Im mitchell caplan. Im [inaudible] welcome. [applause] on behalf of all of us with the Miami Book Fair, we want to welcome you to the 29th book fair, believe it or not. [cheers and applause] this is a remarkable undertaking. It takes the work of literally hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. We have a remarkable board of directors who work extremely hard at doing this year round. None of this at all could happen without the good, good support of everyone here at miamidade college, and lets give them a huge round of applause. [applause] and were particularly appreciative of the sponsors. Without the sponsors and the funding from foundations and governmental agencies, we would not be able to bring you all this wonderful literary extravaganza. And, of course, our friends. Many of you are friends to have Miami Book Fair. And a way that you can support this book fair and make sure that it goes on for another 29 years as well. [applause] if you, if you look at downstairs, theres a friends booth, and youre more than welcome to sign up if youd like. Id also like to tell you that make sure you pick up a fairgoers guide on your way out. We have a Remarkable Program this year. Tomorrow night, in fact, we start not at night, but around 4 00 with lemony snick. For all of you who have got kids i see her hes coming with his new series, and hell be here at four oclock followed by junot diaz, wonderful writer, and chris hayes, many of you may know him from msnbc. And hell be there ending the program that night. We also have an Incredible Program that happens in spanish and other languages as well. And we have some more than 70 writers from Different Countries , from latin america and spain that will be with us as well as the featured country this year, the country of pair guy. And we invite you to the opening of the pavilion next thursday, and we will have the first lady of the country doing the honors of opening the pavilion. So please come by, learn about their culture, traditions and their literature throughout the whole weekend. And if youll welcome if youll excuse on a personal note, ive been working with alina very closely. Alinas the executive director of the center here at the college. Before that she was the executive director of the Miami Book Fair for i wont tell you how many years. [laughter] it was a lot of years. A lot. And its just been announced that alina is now the director of executive director of Cultural Affairs for the entire miamidade college. We want to congratulate her on her new appointment as well. [applause] thank you, thank you. Im looking forward to that. And part of my new responsibilities is to also work very closely with Miami InternationalFilm Festival celebrating 30 years in march, and we have the director with us here this evening. So mark your calendars for that one as well. [applause] and my secret hope is that youll see ballet with books in them, and youll see opera with books in them. [laughter] so alinas influence will be everywhere, i think. And can i just take two more minutes of your time to see if you can join me in we can nicing mitchell for 30 years of books and books. [applause] for his leadership, for his mission. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Wow. Again, alina said that we couldnt do this without our sponsors. We also couldnt do it without our publishers who support us, and were very, very fortunate to have in our midst one of the really most brilliant publishers that we have not only in this country, but probably worldwide. His name is michael peach, and hes the publisher of little brown who is tom wolfes publisher. If hell stand, i would hope he could be recognized. Mike . There he is. Thank you, michael. [applause] welcome. Thank you. And our sponsor, one of the really great sponsors that weve had for many, many years, theyve been really huge supporters of the Miami Book Fair, and thats wpbt, channel 2. And to get our program off the ground, i want to bring out the executive Vice President and chief operating officer, delaware hour race sukdeo please, please, welcome her. Thank you all. Have a good evening. [applause] thank you, everyone, and welcome. My name is delores, im the coo for wpbt2 which is your Public Television station. [applause] now, what i love about the Miami Book Fair is that for me it represents how we should be known here in miami. Sure, we have beautiful beaches, weve got some interesting politics. I think increasingly well be known for our wacky characters. But if you look to the person to your right and if you speak to the person to your left, what you will find are engaged, informed, cultured citizens and in growing numbers. We are a smarter city than we give ourselves credit for, and we need to get comfortable with that idea. I hope its because youve been watching more Public Television, i hope so. [applause] [laughter] but i am sure that there is no better way to take us to the next level than to hear from a literary icon. Tom wolfe was born and raised in richmond, virginia, educated at Washington University and later learned a ph. D. From yale. He spent his first ten years as a newspaper man mostly doing general assignment reporting, and i bet if i called on many of you, you could easily name his novels; the right stuff, in our time, the bonfire of the vanities and many more, and now back to blood which reflects miami back to all of us. How are we going to react to that . He is credited with the birth of new journalism and the death of the american novel by some. He is the mark twain of our time. How lucky are we to have a moment in time with him . And what better way to start this conversation hopefully i can get them to come to the stage than with a published author in his own right and a man whose name is synonymous with leadership, our own former mayor, manny diaz. Manny diaz, let me turn it to you. Hopefully, we can get him up here, and tom wolfe. Please welcome them. [applause] well, good evening, everybody. And lets get this started. If bonfire of the vanities, you chose new york with wall street and the Upper East Side as your setting. In the man in full, you chose [inaudible] and then for i am charlotte simms, you wrote about College Sports at a fictional college. Many believe it was duke, especially since your daughter attended duke, graduated from duke. My question is, and i think what all of us want to know, is why miami . How did you come to choose it as a backdrop, and what surprised you the most about miami . My first purpose was to write a book on immigration. This is when i was still working on my last book, and people would say what are you going to work on next . And id say, well, im going to do something on immigration. And always the same response, oh, thats really interesting. And they [laughter] theyd go to sleep standing up like a horse, you know . [laughter] but i thought it was a really great subject. I wasnt interested in how people get in, but what they do once theyre here because i didnt know. My first choice was the vietnamese in california who are there in huge numbers. Theyve now migrated from los angeles up towards San Francisco, just like in miami in a way, theres the san jose mercury, a famous Old Newspaper is, there is now a vietmercury. Unfortunately, i couldnt speak vietnamese, and i couldnt read the paper either. I mean, just not even close. To ours. And then i heard about the following fact about miami miami seems to be the only city in the whole world in which people from another country with another language and a very different culture took over at the voting machine a big, metropolitan area in just over i would say, slightly over one generation. Im talking about the cubans. We have a havanaborn gentleman here to my right, and so i said ive just got to go, ive got to go see what this is all about. I knew so little i still thought that the great industry was tourism in miami. And then i found out that for some time its been shipping, including shipping that made the Miami Federal Reserve Bank have more cash than all the rest of the Federal Reserve banks put together. But now it seems to be pretty honest work. [laughter] and shipping. And i dont know if hes here tonight, an argentine journalist told me, he said miami is choice number two for everybody in latin america. Only people in latin america can read the street names, thats one thing. But anyway, that and once i was here i knew so little, but i had a lot of friends including the mayor and chief of police john timiny. Thats not a bad way to start. I say start at the top. [laughter] of course, when you were down here, we both told you that you had the mayor and the chief of police who had both immigrated to the United States in the same year, 1961, and both from an island, though an ocean apart. You know, i didnt realize it was the same year. That was, john was born in dublin, and i dont know how many of you really remember johns you probably do his faith. He is the ultra irishman. And when you look at him, you know youre talking to a tough irishman. And one of his colleagues today today told me, he said john only had to draw his pistol twice, and those were shootouts. He said the rest of them he just looked at em. [laughter] anyway, thats how i got started, and what a great way to start. John immediately put me on a safe boat, which id never heard of before, of a miami marine patrol. It was like a foamy pancake but 25 feet long. And he goes 40 some miles an hour over water. Thats fast actually. And you cant sink them unless you shoot holes through them. Nobody can turn them over. But anyway, they couldnt, they couldnt have helped me more. I had a slightly nice introduction from the mayor in the big hall at freedom tower, and thats the way to meet people, i think. Let me ask you, also, racial and ethnic strife and tension not to mention class antagonismings seem to permeate your novels. Do you purposely look for this and then choose a location, or does a location lead to the strife and the antagonisms . Maybe im bragging now, but i think so few writers want to touch the subject of race, ethnicity and all those things. It makes people nervous as if theyre going to be run out of town or something. But i think thats america. Thats what america is all about. And i never knew that i was born and raised in richmond, and there were only two types of people there, black and white. That was it. Most of the whites were white anglosaxon protestants. So when i went to get my first newspaper job in springfield, massachusetts, and people kept saying what are you, i didnt know what they were talking about. [laughter] and, but springfield was a city where people who couldnt get a job in boston, couldnt get a job in new york would come to springfield, a city of about 170,000. And everybody was either irish, italian or they were french canadian. And it was important to them to know where you came from. I said, well, i came from senegal valley. What . [laughter] but that was an education, just being in springfield. And this country is, its about the, it is the great Meeting Place of people from all over the world. And somehow they get here, and theyre free. Its and once, well, its a fantastic accomplishment. I started to say americas a wonderful country, but its [inaudible] there are some, of course, they probably dont know what theyre talking about, but there are some that criticize some of your books that some of the characters are onedimensional or simplistic or play to stereotypes. I think that with pride. So would dickens. [laughter] try to find some complicateed side of the great lawyer in [inaudible] ill send you a postcard, the name are come to me. The name will come to me. I brushed i brush that off. Good. What about the main character in back to blood, even the New York Times critic had to admit he was a real character. There are moral choices that your characters make that distinguish them from those around them. What do you feel that nester had in common with some of your other protagonists, and more specifically, what did his morality or choices have in common . I didnt mean to write about, when i started out, i didnt mean to write about a cuban boy. I do things a little bit better. Theres a subject that interests me, a locale that interests me, and i walk b in, and i wait for the characters to arrive. Which they inevitably do. And probably because i got a great introduction to the police but not only john, but angel, one of the great figures in the police force here in my humble opinion. And they would steer me in this direction, and it was always, it was always the right, it was always the right direction. Just be endlessly grateful. John couldnt be here tonight, hes in bahrain running the im not sure what he runs, but its heavy stuff. [laughter] and, and, by the way, thank you for angel, for mentioning angel, dedicating the book well, let me just say angel had the greatest voice and temperament that ive ever seen. Angel was well, let me put it angel was used for talking hostages out of jumping off of buildings. When theres some crisis that comes to miami, they wouldnt put the chief on television, theyd put angel, because he had this voice that could calm everybody down. And he was also, he had been a very brave undercover policeman. But that, its that voice that i remember. And it was never put on. It was never put on. He had great charm, but it was just himself. And i was just so shocked when angel died a couple of years ago. Anyway, a great man. He was. Tom, what was it about hialeah that made you zero in on it . [laughter] the way you did . How were you correctly, i think, able to zero in on the fact that that is a pretty important aspect of understanding the neutrality of cuban culture in miami . Well, i arrived here thinking it was a race track still. It is still there, but they had things like quarter horse races and this and that. Because it was the greatest track just to look at in america. There were flamingos in the infield, and the way they kept and not in a cage. The way they kept it, they planted these shrubs around the infield that they require in order to keep their pink color. If they dont have this to eat, they turn white, and they feel terrible. Anyway, it was a gorgeous place. But then when i got here thanks to oscar corral and his motherinlaw and some others i found out that the real Little Havana in latvia is hialeah. But its not very little anymore. About 225,000 people. And that was the population of miami within the city limits. Within miami proper . Just over 400,000. I thought Little Havana was around [inaudible] and if you wield a cup of cuban coffee, you watch the old men play checkers across the street, youd been there. [laughter] well, speaking of oscar, you have a incredible reputation for the amount of research that you do when youre writing a book. How do you compare the research you did for Charlotte Simmons or man in full to the research you did in miami for blood, and i dont think youve ever done this before, so what was it like having a camera following you around during your research . I know that when i was in office, oscar corral followed me around all the time, and i didnt particularly like it, so [laughter] youll see for yourself what happened to me when oscar followed me around. Hes on after we arement the one thing i couldnt do was let any cameraman in on private interviews. Right. Theres nothing to put a conversation to a halt faster than a tv cram. Camera. Other than that, and my posture wasnt very good. Thats the first thing i noticed. [laughter] anyway, i think he did a brilliant job. A few years back you came to miami at my invitation, spoke about art and its contribution to the city of life. In your books art, especially highend art, play an important part in setting the scenes, especially art hanging in some rich guys apartment in manhattan. And, of course, you use the new art movement in miami as part of the backdrop in back to blood. Could you take a minute to talk about art and what it means to cities in America Today . Art is, it used to be totally underestimated. Now its a driving force. Artists are the best roles they adopt is in america. I mean, i see this in new york all the time. They move to some god forsaken neighborhood in the worst part of brooklyn, the next thing you know the rich cant wait. [laughter] to pour in and buy, and buy territory. As a matter of fact, look at the success of winwood. Thats the artists as real estate development. Sometimes they dont treat them nicely. In providence, rhode island, where you may know the name buddy chauncey was mayor, buddy was a multifaceted figure [laughter] but he got the bright idea of, he talked to real estate people who had a lot of just kind of dead property, warehouse and so on in the middle of providence to let artists use these lofts for really token, you know, 50 a month, that kind of thing. And it was the smartest thing he ever did. Well, different definitions of smart. He suddenly found corporations were moving in because the artists were all in this particular area. The civic improvements were happening. They used to the rivers there in connecticut used to be covered in the pavement for more parking space. Theres the river underneath. He had all the parking, asphalt taken away, and each week he had a boat come down the river with sort of spraying incense and music was playing on the boat, and people would gather around that river and chock a block. Now, thats the power, thats the power of art. And it doesnt matter what the artists are like. Just as long as they are, just as long as they are artists. On the spiritual side, i dont really know. [laughter] because im baffled here. Every welltodo art collector has an aa and an art assistant who chooses for him or her what he or she likes. Oh, i didnt know i liked that. [laughter] but its, it just works. Its a form of religion. I really believe that. In which you dont have to, you dont have any morality, you just have places to go to worship. [laughter] by the way, were going to im going to ask one more question, and then were going to open it up to all of you who im sure have lots of questions for tom. Finally, tom, after bonfire of the vanities you got into a few tiffs with other aut