Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

“Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history & the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, & shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass 

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History & a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, & the use of language & 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, & 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 &, 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, & as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel & the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial e