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Babel

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

by R. F. Kuang

Length 21 hours 45 minutes

Language English

Narrators Chris Lew Kum Hoi & Billie Fulford-Brown

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Bookseller recommendation

“This is it. This is the magical school story that adults who grew up in the 90s and 00s have been hoping to find: one that incorporates a beautiful, erudite, delightfully post-steampunk world of magic, but that is ultimately about the hopes and the friendships of young people who came from outside the elite class, and whose lives have been shaped by their own intelligence and by the colonialism and capitalism that are ingrained in their magical world. What they decide to do with their gifts rings true, and while it is in some parts painful, it is nuanced, culturally aware, and finally inspiring. R. F. Kuang has confronted the demons of our generation's stories fearlessly. And Babel has, with wit and passion, driven back a little of the dark.”
— Nialle • The Haunted Bookshop

Bookseller recommendation

“A fantasy novel set firmly in the very real world of 1830's Britain. Translation and the juxtaposition of similar words in different languages has become a source of power that will drive the British Empire to become dominant throughout the world. A wonderful evocation of life at the time and in Oxford in particular, this is a deeply researched novel on history, linguistics and the price of empire building and colonisation. Excellent!”
— Phil • Timaru Booksellers

Bookseller recommendation

“Finishing a book like this is equal parts pleasure and pain: pleasure in that reading something as striking and beautiful as this is everything a reader hopes to feel in a book juxtaposed by the pain of something beautiful ending and leaving these characters behind in the pages. There are few books that have brought tears to my eyes (I can still count them on one hand) but Kuang's Babel, or The Necessity of Violence is now numbered among them.”
— Maxwell • Paragraphs Bookstore

Bookseller recommendation

“IMHO, the best fantasy books give a reader new insights into our own world. Babel passed that test for me with its grounding in Britain's colonial history with an overlay of magic. I loved R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War trilogy, but this finely wrought novel surpasses it. Highly recommended.”
— Mike • A Great Good Place for Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Without a doubt one of the best, most important books of the year, this dark academia historical fantasy takes us from the soaring heights of magical schools, ivory towers, and the life of the mind to the bottom of its rotten foundations: colonialism, white supremacy, exploitation, complicity - all while keeping its reader spellbound in wonder, gripped in horror, fascinated with language and translation and etymology, and tender and twisted in knots over the four best friends at its heart. ”
— Megan • Underground Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Finishing a book like this is equal parts pleasure and pain: pleasure in reading something so striking and beautiful juxtaposed by the pain of it ending. Few books have brought tears to my eyes; Kuang’s Babel is now numbered among them.”
— Maxwell Leaning • Paragraphs Bookstore

Bookseller recommendation

“This book absolutely consumed me. On the surface, Babel is an alternate historical fantasy about a magical school in Oxford in the nineteenth century. But as Babel’s layers of complexity unfold, the story confronts us with powerful questions about the nature of colonialism, capitalism, institutional power, comfort & compromise, and our own complicity with injustice. The effect is deeply profound, moving, and unsettling in the very best way. ”
— Josh • Underground Books

Bookseller recommendation

“What a nice empire you have there...what a shame if something were to....happen to it.... Babel is one of the best fantasies I've read in years - it weaves together a rich alternate history and a heart-pounding plot, and rips into the imperial machine and the whiteness of academia with glee, all while exploring the nuance of language and translation and collective power with incredible skill. It's ambitious, it's vicious, it's heartbreaking, and it is absolutely worth a read. R.F. Kuang never misses. ”
— Rebecca • Quail Ridge Books

Summary
About the author

#94 in Bestselling Audiobooks #6 in Bestselling Historical Fiction Audiobooks

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 himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Fiction Historical Fiction Fantasy Fiction - Literary

Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, and Yellowface. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. A Marshall Scholar, 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, where she studies diaspora, contemporary Sinophone literature, and Asian American literature.