Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison read the first chapter of her new novel,Paradise,to a packed audience which included about 50 Harvard students yesterday in downtown Boston's Faneuil Hall.

On a publicity tour forParadise, Morrison was introduced by Professors of Afro-American Studies Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cornel R. West '74, who set the tone for an event imbued with homage to Morrison and to literature in general.

West, speaking at the podium like a preacher preparing his flock to meet the revelation, used his sonorous and gravelly voice to dramatic effect speaking of Morrison.

"We are here for one reason and one reason only--to listen to one of the last historical figures of this time. The latter part of this age, this literary age, will be Toni Morrison," West proclaimed.

Morrison received her accolade a bit self-consciously.

"At some point, a clarification," she said ruefully, "I sort of wish I had something more than a book."

However, as she began to read from her book, the auditorium hushed to hear her soft, melodious voice.

"They shot the white girl first...." Morrison narrated her story, which began deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, where men from the small town of Ruby--in defense of the "one all-black town worth the pain"--assault the nearby town of Convent and the women in it.

Paradise,published by Alfred O. Knopf, is Morrison's first novel since she won the Nobel Prize in 1993, and her seventh in a writing career that has included novels such asBeloved, Sula,andSong of Solomon.Morrison, a native of Lorain, Ohio, is currently a professor at Princeton, but has strong personal friendships with Gates and West.

In his introductory speech, West reminisced about the time he went to Sweden to see Morrison receive her Nobel Prize.

"She was walking with the king of Sweden, making the king look proletarian," West recalled.

It was Harvard's W.E.B. DuBois Institute, directed by Gates, that sponsored Morrison's visit, along with the Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library.

According to Robert Mitchell, who is in charge of advertising and promotions at the Harvard Book Store, the store distributed 700 tickets to the public about a month ago.

All 700 were gone in three days and Mitchell referred to the event as "the hottest literary ticket in town."

Jia-Rui Chong '99, along with her roommate and two other friends from Harvard, arrived at Faneuil Hall an hour before the event to ensure themselves front-row seats.