Babel

Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is a 2022 novel of speculative fiction by R. F. Kuang set in a fantastical version of Oxford in 1830s England (the story concludes in 1840). Thematically similar to The Poppy War (2018–20), Kuang's first book series, the book criticizes British imperialism, racism and capitalism, and the complicity of academia, knowledge, and language in perpetuating and enabling them. Babel is set in an alternative reality in which Britain's global economic and colonial supremacy are fueled by the use of magical silver bars. Their power comes from capturing what is "lost in translation" between words in different languages that have similar, but not identical, meanings. Silver bars inscribed with such "match-pairs" are used in various applications such as increasing industrial and agricultural production, improving the accuracy of bullets, healing injuries, and more. To harness this power, Oxford University created the Royal Institute of Translation, nicknamed "Babel", where scholars work to find match-pairs. The Institute is loosely based upon the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. The plot is focused on four new students at the institute, their growing awareness that their academic efforts maintain Britain's imperialist supremacy, their debate over how to prevent the First Opium War, and the use of violence. It debuted at the first spot on The New York Times Best Seller list, and won Blackwell's Books of the Year for Fiction in 2022 and the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel.