Babel by R.F. Kuang: The Book That Made Me Fall in Love With Words Again
A sweeping, spellbinding novel that dismantles colonial power, cherishes language, and leaves you changed long after the final page.
Some books you read and forget. Babel is not one of them. It is a story that roots itself under your skin, carefully weaving a path into the direction of how you see history, language, and power.
I’m not someone who usually reaches for speculative fiction or alternative history. Too often, those books feel like clever puzzles without a life. But Babel by R.F. Kuang broke that barrier for me in the first few pages. By the end of the week — yes, just seven days — I’d read it cover to cover, between meals and late into the night, unable to walk away from the world she had built.
Set in an alternate 19th-century Britain, Kuang imagines an empire whose dominance flows not merely from armies or trade, but from an extraordinary magic rooted in the nuances of language itself. The British have learned to capture the subtle differences between words in different languages like the meanings that slip between them and store that power in engraved silver bars. These enchanted bars run factories, heal wounds, and sharpen bullets. At the center of this world is Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation, known simply as Babel, where gifted linguists from across the globe are brought to serve the empire’s ambitions. But as the story unfolds, the intoxicating beauty of language is revealed to be bound up with the violence of empire. This is a truth the novel never lets you forget.
As a South Indian reader, this hit close to home. Kuang’s alternate Britain might be laced with magic, but its shadow is our reality. The aftershocks of colonial rule that still ripple through many of our languages, our education systems, and our ways of thinking. Reading Babel was like holding a mirror to history, one where the erasure of language and culture wasn’t just collateral damage, but an intentional strategy. The book pulled me into a strange nostalgia for the richness of unbroken linguistic traditions, and for the cultural ease that existed before they were reshaped to fit the colonizer’s mould.
“So, you see, translators do not so much deliver a message as the rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty - rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the authors ideology and biases.”
In Babel, colonialism is shown not just as a theft of resources, but as a reshaping of identity itself. Language becomes both the battleground and the weapon. Translation, in Kuang’s hands, is a double-edged act. It can illuminate, but it can also strip meaning away until only what serves power remains. The novel reveals how those under empire are taught to distrust their own heritage, to view their mother tongues as liabilities, and to live in a state of compliance enforced by intimidation in subtle ways. The most haunting truth Kuang offers is that empire convinces the oppressed that the cost of resisting is their own fault and that the moral wrong lies not in injustice, but in daring to challenge it.
“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
Kuang’s Babel also reflects how mastery of language confers authority, paralleling the ways colonial powers in India weaponized English to reshape society.
“Nice comes from the Latin word for “stupid”,’ said Griffin. ‘We do not want to be nice.”
In the Indian context, colonial powers systematically manipulated language to assert dominance when English was imposed as the language of administration, law, and education, often at the expense of vernacular languages. Local knowledge, culture, and literature were devalued, with mastery of English becoming a gatekeeper to social mobility and political influence. Kuang’s novel mirrors this dynamic through the Babel system, where mastery over language and translation is not merely academic but a conduit for magical, military, and political authority. Just as colonial rulers in India weaponized English to shape thought, memory, and power structures, Babel’s linguistic hierarchies illustrate how language can be twisted to enforce control, privilege, and even violence. The book, therefore, not only captivates as a story of magic and ambition but also serves as a poignant allegory for the ways imperial powers have historically exploited language to dominate societies.
Even today, English in India carries the weight of prestige and opportunity, a legacy of colonial rule. It is widely seen as the language of education, business, and upward trajectory, while local languages are often relegated to the home or informal spaces. This creates a hierarchy where fluency in English signals access to elite circles, modernity, and influence, whereas vernacular languages are sometimes unfairly associated with tradition or limited opportunity. The colonial strategy of privileging English has thus left a lasting imprint, shaping social mobility and cultural perceptions even decades after independence.
“There are no kind masters, Letty,’ Anthony continued. ‘It doesn’t matter how lenient, how gracious, how invested in your education they make out to be. Masters are masters in the end.”
It’s a sad reality that local languages in many formerly colonized countries, including India, struggle for the same access and opportunities that English now commands as a global language. This linguistic imbalance, established in colonial history, continues to shape education, employment, and social mobility, leaving indigenous tongues marginalized despite their rich cultural and literary heritage.
“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”
Kuang’s writing is deeply immersive, where your brain starts creating these images that are deeply descriptive. Thanks to her writing. It’s the kind that makes you feel the cold weight of a silver bar in your palm or feel like you’re witnessing the fires in the library. She has crafted a novel that is both intimate and expansive. It is steeped in affection for language and literature, yet unsparing in its dissection of the systems that exploit them. Her characters are not complicated, but are deeply human, and are allowed to make mistakes that hurt themselves and others. The moral dilemmas they face feel uncomfortably familiar to anyone who’s had to navigate a world built on unfair terms.
One of the most striking achievements of Babel is how the philosophy of translation evolves alongside its characters. Early on, it’s framed as an inevitable act of distortion by bending the original to fit foreign eyes. Later, it becomes an act of radical empathy. The book’s pacing mirrors this transformation. The early chapters move rather slowly, with the academic life punctuated by telling moments of casual prejudice. This isn’t necessarily a bad pace. It makes you uncomfortable in a way that is still a part of the story. Then, as the truth comes into focus, the tempo quickens, and events tumble forward with an urgency that leaves you breathless.
The fictional magic system is seamlessly woven with real history. Every translation exercise opens a door to the etymology of a word, the journey of a language, the layers of meaning that centuries have left behind. Each chapter begins with excerpts that are perfectly chosen, that deepen the story’s resonance. It’s never ornamental. And at its heart are characters so vividly drawn that they refuse to leave you, even after the last page.
Babel is ambitious, unflinching, and beautiful. It is a love letter to language, a critique of empire, and a story about the cost of knowing the truth. Even if speculative fiction isn’t your usual choice, this book will demand your attention and reward it.
If you read Babel, you will live in it, and it will stay with you.