Babel
by R. F. Kuang · 2022
Literary Fiction · ranked #224 in category
Winner · The Nebula Award for Best Novel, 2023
Robin Swift, taken from Canton to Oxford to study at the Royal Institute of Translation — Babel — discovers that the British Empire's power runs on magical silver activated by translation, and that his education is inseparable from the empire's exploitation of the languages and people it has colonised. Kuang's novel is a dark academia fantasy that is also a sustained argument about language, colonialism and the violence embedded in empire.
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The verdict
- Category
- Literary Fiction
- Author
- R. F. Kuang
- Standing
- Essential Read
About Literary Fiction
Literary fiction sits at the intersection of fine writing and serious storytelling — novels that reward attention and stay with you long after the last page. These are the books that alter your sense of what's possible in prose.
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