BOOK REVIEW
RF Kuang’s Babel is a brilliant, genre-bending novel that seamlessly weaves together fantasy, historical fiction, and political allegory.
Subtitled Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution, this novel is as much a narrative about magic and revolution as it is a profound examination of colonialism, language and power.
Set in an alternate 1830s England, Babel follows Robin Swift, an orphaned Chinese boy who is taken from Canton by a mysterious British scholar and raised in preparation for a life at the prestigious Royal Institute of Translation known simply as Babel in Oxford.
In this world, the British Empire owes much of its supremacy to silver-working, a magical process that uses the lost meanings between words in different languages to enchant objects.
Babel is the heart of this magic, and its scholars are the Empire’s linguistic engine.
As Robin progresses through his education, he is enchanted by the beauty of Oxford’s academic life, but also increasingly disturbed by the ways in which Babel and by extension, the Empire, relies on colonial exploitation.
The magic of silver, while intellectually fascinating, is a tool of oppression and the deeper Robin delves into his studies, the more he is forced to reckon with the brutal reality that knowledge, in the hands of empire, is rarely neutral.
Kuang, who holds graduate degrees in both Chinese Studies and Modern Literature, infuses Babel with rich historical and linguistic detail.
This novel is filled with etymological footnotes, reflections on the nature of translation, and philosophical debates on the morality of resistance.
This intellectual depth sets it apart from more conventional fantasy narratives and gives the novel a powerful gravitas.
It is, in many ways, both a love letter to language and a manifesto against academic complicity.
The novel’s pacing may challenge some readers, especially in the first half, where much of the story is devoted to world-building and philosophical exposition.
But those who persist are rewarded with a thrilling and devastating second half, as Robin and his fellow students face impossible moral choices and are drawn into a revolutionary struggle.

Thematically, Babel is unapologetically political.
Kuang does not shy away from portraying the violence of empire or the difficult, sometimes radical decisions that resistance requires.
While some characters serve more as symbols than fully developed individuals, Robin himself is a deeply sympathetic and tragic figure.
His personal journey from eager student to reluctant revolutionary is both heartbreaking and compelling at the same time.
In the end, Babel is not just a story about magic and rebellion, it is a profound meditation on the costs of empire, the burden of knowledge and the power of language.
Do not be discouraged by the size of this ambitious, provocative and emotionally resonant novel.
Babel confirms RF Kuang as one of the most important voices in modern speculative fiction.
Julie Chessman
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