Babel by R.F. Kuang

In an alternative version of Victorian-era Oxford, translation is wielded like a weapon for the British Empire. From trains and gardens to buildings and factories, silver bars are imported from overseas and enchanted by the academics of Oxford’s Babel institution. Each bar is given a 'match pair' of similar-meaning words from different languages which powers the metal with potential to heal, craft or destroy.

When European languages begin to fade in power, children born under the British empire in Asia, the Caribbean and the Americas are taken from their homelands and brought to England, trained to find new match pairs – and new power – from their native languages. Born in China and taken to England, Robin Swift becomes one of Babel’s young, bright students, devoted to the potential for translation to build bridges across nations, until he learns that the underbelly of colonialism is built on Oxford’s silver bars.

It’s a neat analogy to real history, as Babel’s Britain becomes relentlessly hungry for more silver at the expense of their – and their colonial subjects’ – humanity. Kuang is an Oxford alumnus and a translator herself, and her relish in recreating Oxford in this slightly alternative England is palpable. Extensive footnotes (both whimsical and densely theoretical), give Babel its scholarly texture, and Kuang’s worldbuilding walks a fine line: using the magic of translation to underpin the real horrors of Britain’s history. The result is a triumphant, harrowing fantasy.

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Harper Voyager, 1 Sep
harpercollins.co.uk