Catherine's Pick: Babel by R.F. Kuang

A Chinese boy orphaned by cholera and raised in Britain is trained to work at Oxford's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, the world's center for translation and magic through silver working where he must choose between competing loyalties.

Words have power. In the world of Babel by R. F. Kuang, this is literally true. Take a bar of silver. Write a word on one side and a translation of that word into another language on the other. Speak the words, and the effect will be based on the gap in meaning of the translation. However, the speaker must be fluent in both languages. In 1828, the British Empire sits on a wealth of silver and languages, and its continued growth depends on getting access to new languages to mine for magical effects.

Enter Robin Swift. When he is orphaned as a child in Canton, the English Professor Lovell appears, makes him his ward, and transports him to England to prepare him to enroll in Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation. There, Robin will do what all university students do. He will learn about the world he lives in and come to see the flaws that those in power want him to ignore. In Robin’s case, he could take that knowledge and alter the course of history. Whatever course he chooses, he will have to pay a price. What choice is worth the price to be paid?

Babel is an examination of empire from the perspective of the people at its margins told in an evocative and atmospheric style, pulling me in and refusing to let me go. This is a must-read for fans of dark academia. - Catherine, Cataloging Associate