Literary Fiction

Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

by R.F. Kuang

An orphaned Chinese boy is trained in languages and brought to Oxford's Institute of Translation, where silver-working magic fuels the British Empire's dominance. Kuang crafts a searing examination of colonialism, translation, and complicity disguised as a dark academic fantasy. The novel interrogates the violence inherent in empire and the impossible position of the colonized scholar.

More Literary Fiction

• The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1) — Katherine Arden
• Rules for Vanishing — Kate Alice Marshall
• Summer Sons — Lee Mandelo
• A Confederacy of Dunces — John Kennedy Toole
• Witches: A Novel — Brenda Lozano
• Remarkably Bright Creatures — Shelby Van Pelt
• The Things They Carried — Tim O'Brien
• Shadow of Night — Deborah Harkness

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