“But one of the best things about Oxford is the architecture, the libraries, the sheer beauty of spaces you are allowed to be in,” she says. Part of Kuang’s inspiration came from her own time studying at Cambridge and Oxford – “being there, thinking strictly about the history of what made a place like this possible”. And when Britain pursues war with China, Robin and his friends must decide what morals they are willing to sacrifice in a bloody revolution against Babel’s colonial agenda. In defiance, they join the secret Hermes society, dedicated to stealing and relocating Babel’s silver-working to the colonies. But their knowledge is being used to exploit their motherlands as tools of Babel, they realise, they are contributing to the wrong side of history. Dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, they carve out a home. He finds belonging among Ramiz Mirza, Letitia Price and Victoire Desgraves – a group of outsiders also shunned by the white and male Oxford crowd.

But there’s a sinister side to this magic: Babel’s work becomes fuel for colonisation, catapulting the British empire to unprecedented power.Īt first, Babel is a paradise for Robin. Kuang invents silver-working as the art of turning lost-in-translation words into silver (enchanted silver acts as technology does in our world, powering machinery and revolutionising industries). The book follows Robin, who was plucked from China to prepare in Britain to study at Babel, Oxford’s school of translation, where foreign languages are a currency and power comes from being able to manipulate them through “silver-working”. ‘ is a nostalgic and loving rendition of a campus I knew’: Rebecca F Kuang Photograph: Mike Styer Photography LLC/Mike Styer

Babel by rf kuang