Babel

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

By: R.F. Kuang

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Hardcover | 1 September 2022

At a Glance

Hardcover
560 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 15.5 x 5.5

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THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES AND #1 NYT BESTSELLER

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

Oxford, 1836.

The city of dreaming spires.

It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.

And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.

Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift.

Until it became a prison…

But can a student stand against an empire?

An incendiary new novel from award-winning author R.F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.

About the Author

Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and the forthcoming Babel. Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.

Industry Reviews

‘One for Philip Pullman fans’ - THE TIMES

‘This one is an automatic buy’ - GLAMOUR

‘Ambitious, sweeping and epic’ - EVENING STANDARD

‘Razor-sharp’ - DAILY MAIL

‘An ingenious fantasy about empire’ - GUARDIAN

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