Kuang's Babel begins with much the same premise: the British are attempting to conquer using a combination of silver and language, and we end the book witnessing such stunning violence that the fate of the Empire itself is left uncertain. In anger, God introduced a variety of languages, leading to the downfall of Babel, and forcing the people to disperse and spread across the world. However, they grew arrogant and thought to challenge God by building a great tower, named Babel, high enough to reach the heavens. The story of the tower of Babel, summarised, is this: long after the Great Flood, the descendents of Noah populated the world and spoke a single language.

The name of the novel, as well as the fictional institute in the book, is a powerful indicator of this legacy. Even today, for example, applying to study or work abroad means sitting for English language proficiency exams which, hilariously, have expiration dates-a combination of the merging of economic control and neo-colonialism.

Babel is a study in just how powerful a tool this language can be, both for good and for terrible evil. In Babel, we are front-row witnesses to her love of language, seen in her lyrical, almost rhythmic descriptions of Oxford and Robin's rise and fall there. Kuang seems to be a writer with unflinching devotion to historical truth, no matter how harsh. Having emigrated from China to the US as a child, she went on to earn an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford, and she is now working on a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. Read more Susanna Clarke's 'Piranesi': How real is the world we imagine? This is the setting that renders Kuang's historical fantasy novel much more 'historical' than 'fantasy'. This is to be done primarily through a powerful influx of opium into China, slowly disabling its population and allowing Britain to overtake China's silver reserves. The cosy comfort of university life is destroyed, however, when the four are brought face to face with the reality of what their beloved Babel truly does-allowing Britain to forcefully set forth a disastrous war against China, winning which would all but cement British dominance in the East. Coupled with the fact that his three best friends are, alternatively, Indian, Muslim, Black and female, the four both excel in and struggle to adjust to life so far removed from their homes. Babel itself is enchanting, almost mythical in its beauty and power, cocooned within the heart of Oxford, but Robin is half-Chinese, making him an easy target for endless, varied and deeply-ingrained hate. Robin's life at Oxford is both blissful and terrifying. Gifted with a talent for languages, Robin is brought to London and is, eventually, accepted into Babel as a student. Robin Swift, our protagonist, is plucked as a child from his impoverished homeland of Canton, China by his white father, a member of the prestigious faculty at Babel.

Babel book kuang