She said both she and her character Robin are from Guangzhou, China (referred to as Canton in the book) and that “we both have a really difficult relationship with first being in England and being an outsider and trying to find our place in England and in Oxford, trying to fit in and wondering if it's worth assimilating at all.” However, Kuang relates with her protagonist Robin the most out of all the characters in “Babel” due to their shared experience with immigrating and assimilating. “If a character doesn’t feel true to me then they’re very difficult to write because then they’re a collection of archetypes and traits that I don’t really know what’s moving them,” she said. When discussing her characters, Kuang said she includes a piece of her soul in each one.

“‘Babel’ was my first work after that, and I really didn’t want to do anything that sounded too similar or didn’t feel like a challenge so the deliberate Victorian pastiche and the footnote styling of ‘Babel’ is an attempt to strike out with a completely different authorial voice.” I was looking for ways to challenge myself technically after I finished ‘The Poppy War’ trilogy, which is a very straight forward epic fantasy series,” she explained. “In terms of literary technique it was a lot of fun juggling between those two voices. She also said she wanted to implement the footnotes as a literary device to challenge herself as an author. In the case of ‘Babel’ I think the footnotes function as a separate narrator,” she said.Īccording to Kuang, the audiobook of “Babel” uses a male voice for Robin’s narration and a female voice for the footnotes' narration to highlight the different perspectives. The author, who is currently attending Yale as she pursues her PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures, employs footnotes in her novel to add layers to Robin’s story. Her latest book, 'Babel' will be published Aug. ‘Babel’ is my love letter and breakup letter with Oxford and academia.”Īuthor R.F. “I started writing it while I was at Oxford and it is deeply influenced by the beauty of the place and the dark beauty that underwrites it. I think it is the perfect novel for people who enjoyed ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt or ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. “‘Babel’ is a novel about the magic of translation, the illusion and allure of the academy and the violence of anticolonial resistance. After years of diligent study, Robin is enrolled in Babel where he and his three classmates become quick friends, but Robin is forced to face some harsh truths about Babel and his life at Oxford.

Once in England, Robin is trained in Latin, Ancient Greek and Chinese so he can enroll in Oxford’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, known as Babel. Kuang’s latest novel tells the story of Robin Swift, who was orphaned by a cholera outbreak in 1828 China before being taken in by a mysterious Oxford professor.

Babel book kuang