Babel
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himsel
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What you might want to know about Babel
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1830s Oxford, an orphaned Cantonese boy is brought to Britain to study at the empire's elite translation institute. Magic runs on languages, and the empire runs on the magic. He starts asking questions.
Yes. Babel won the 2023 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award, and the British Book Award for Fiction. It was also a New York Times bestseller and Goodreads Choice Awards winner.
Babel includes extensive footnotes on translation, etymology, and 19th-century imperial history. The prose is accessible, but the academic asides slow the pace. Most readers either embrace the dense scholarly approach or struggle with it.
Babel was written by R.F. Kuang, published in 2022 by Hidra.
Babel is 560 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Babel takes most readers 8 to 12 hours to finish.
Babel is a standalone novel by R.F. Kuang, not part of a series.
Babel is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
