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Babel
- Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
- Narrated by: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
- Length: 21 hrs and 45 mins
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Babel
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Summary
THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES AND #1 NYT BESTSELLER
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Oxford, 1836.
The city of dreaming spires.
It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.
And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.
Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift.
Until it became a prison…
But can a student stand against an empire?
An incendiary novel from award-winning author R. F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"Kuang has crafted a masterpiece that resonates with power and knowledge. Babel is a stark picture of the cruelty of empire, a distillation of dark academia, and a riveting blend of fantasy and historical fiction – a monumental achievement, from the footnotes to the final page." (Samantha Shannon, author of Priory of The Orange Tree)
"Ambitious, sweeping and epic." (Evening Standard)
"An ingenious fantasy about empire’." (Guardian)
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What listeners say about Babel
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Stuart Piper
- 28-11-23
My favourite book I read all year
I’ve read/listened to 150 books this year on my degree, and THIS was my favourite.
Miraculously, earth-shatteringly brilliant.
(This audio is so well narrated, but the patchy edits with varying sound quality levels are a bit clunky and crude, which is a shame given the brilliance of the writing which deserved more technical care I think).
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-04-23
Tower of Babel
I liked how we learnt so much about the background and heuristics of words.
The silvermaking fantasy angle I feel did not get fleshed out in a way that was.. understandable to me but perhaps that was my own doing.
Might be a better book to read simply as there are different languages - but the audiobook performance was good.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 08-11-22
Subpar narration
While I do like the narrator’s performance, his Chinese pronunciation is horrible. I actually prefer an inserted audio clip of accurately pronounced Chinese than having to check the book whenever he speaks Chinese, because I, a native Chinese speaker, cannot understand what he’s saying.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 21-12-22
What a brilliant book
I wish I knew of others like it. Maybe she will write a sequel? Who knows…
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 30-06-23
Absolutely amazing book, the author is a genius.
what an astoundingly brilliant book that manages to cover being Chinese, Indian, African, Caribbean, British and then the nuances of mixed race, being a white woman, being a black woman, being poor and becoming an academic, the working classes, the industrial revolution, the power of language, workers rights all in one go with etymology thrown in for the mix. Highly recommended.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Sodyathen
- 18-04-23
Flat. Did I listen to a different book?!
When I read some of the reviews I’m confused. Did I just listen to a different book?! I found this story a non-starter. It was flat and not at all compelling. It got to the point I was listening at 2.25x speed just to get through it. Happy for you if you enjoyed it, but for me, this was a waste of an Audible Credit.
(And what were the footnotes all about!!?!)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael Harry
- 19-05-23
Brilliant in every aspect
instant favourite. loved the story, the narration and immersion of it all. would definitely recommend
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Grant Garden
- 05-10-22
Utterly breathtakingly brilliant
The story itself and the storytelling just blew me away. Kuang is a genius, there is no doubt. The genre she has selected to communicate through - profoundly political polemical historical fiction with elements of magic reminding me of both Philip Pullman and Neal Stephenson- will hopefully enable her to reach a vast global audience that needs to know what she is telling us about. Her understanding of language and how that defines our subjective realities and perceptions enables us to cross boundaries that otherwise we could not even imagine. If she could now just politicise the many many millions who have consumed Harry Potter there might still yet be hope for humanity….
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 01-09-22
No Attached PDFs
Absolutely incredible, immersive, immaculate, intricate book with no accompanying PDFs which the narrator theirselves say you should look at thanks to a glitch in the audible system.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- ML79
- 01-10-22
Try and ignore reviews complaining about pronunciation
Yes, somd words are not pronounced correctly but It doesn’t detract from the plot and arguably - for me- added to the senseof otherness or feeling the characters had not assimilated without wrinkles into the university at large - which is a pretty incredible accidental device!
I’m actually disheartened that reviews here initially put be off listening to this book- thinking that I’d be perpetually frustrated but it’s a heartbreaking book and the reviews ended up - like the mispronunciation adding to the sense of the lack of understanding of how minorities feel, how those in privileged or majority positions can find empathy difficult and really added to my experience listening to it .
I cried at the end. If fantasy / steam punky kind of vibe is your thing it’s work it .
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