"Tower of Babel" Author: [US] Kuang Lingxiu Publisher: CITIC Publishing Group

Introduction · · · · · ·
❤️‍🔥I long to be understood by the world, even if it is in vain

🧙‍♀️27-year-old Chinese female writer Kuang Lingxiu won the science fiction Nobel Prize Nebula Award, Locus Award, and the British National Book Award

🪄Language is magic, translation is betrayal

🎆Set up a novel silver bar mystery, where a small person shakes the foundation of the empire

🧚‍♂Colonialism, identity, language translation, dark academy... it can be called "Harry Potter during the Industrial Revolution"

【Content Introduction】

In the 1820s, plague swept Guangzhou. The boy Robin's family died tragically, but he survived. The mysterious Professor Lovell rescued him and took him to London, England, across the ocean to raise him, just to make him eligible to study in the Tower of Babel.

The Tower of Babel was the translation center of this world, and also the center of magic. Scholars in the tower, who were proficient in many languages, used translation to make magic work. Translation was impossible, so the meaning lost or distorted in the translation process was captured and displayed by the silver bars. The inscribed silver bars were the source of the empire's power, making the British fleet invincible, giving birth to the silver industrial revolution, and helping Britain to pocket the world's silver.

As his studies deepen, Robin becomes immersed in the magic of translation, unaware that he and his companions are about to be involved in a long-planned conspiracy... Disappearing students, secretive societies, when malice, jealousy, greed and violence fill this tower of ideals, they must make a choice: to be loyal to their mother tongue and homeland, or to continue to live in a foreign country.

【Editor's recommendation】

1. Language is magic. Set up a novel magic secret, which comes from the semantics lost in translation. As long as a word is translated differently from the original meaning, the magic will take effect on the silver bar.

🪄Mantra: To accept without thinking.

Effect: A sweet taste filled his mouth. He was about to choke to death on the candied dates. His throat was blocked tightly and he couldn't breathe -

🪄Spell: invisible.

Effect: They are formless, floating, expanding. They are air, brick walls, cobblestone ground.

2. An epic and magnificent narrative, a realistic restoration of the ancient Oxford campus, how tiny people shook the foundations of the empire, and how one can only rely on friendship in moments of loneliness and helplessness.

The invention of the telegraph, the birth of the camera, people's food, clothing, housing and transportation are all closely related to silver magic. It is the driving force behind the British Industrial Revolution and an accomplice in assisting the colonial expansion of the empire. When the character's choice overlaps with the direction of history, the depth of the novel is revealed. The author restored the ancient Oxford campus with reference to the history of Oxford and past learning experiences. Another major feature of "Babel" is its character creation, especially the characterization of the protagonist Robin. At the end of the novel, try to look back at the beginning of the novel, and you will find how much Robin has changed. His sadness, anger, dilemma, struggle, kindness and relatively short moments of happiness all make people feel so real. The jealousy, greed, and kindness of the characters that he has to overcome are tested again and again. Fortunately, Robin still has three little friends to accompany him.

3. Translation is betrayal. Language is not a glossary of terms that covers a whole set of universal concepts, and translation does not have a one-to-one correspondence. It is a dance in shackles, an art of regret, and the curse of the Tower of Babel.

Translation means the destruction of the original meaning and the deception of the mother tongue. When Robin found out that his beloved translation magic had become an accomplice of the empire's invasion, he was hesitant and indecisive. Should he follow his inner moral guidance and join the resistance, or live a life of luxury and wealth?

4. The cover uses the US version, and the main visual is the magnificent Tower of Babel. The title is printed in gold, and the inner cover is printed in gold. The magic energy lines on the cover converge to the top of the tower, symbolizing the position of the Tower of Babel in the magic center of the world.

【Awards】

The 15th Chinese Science Fiction Nebula Award 2023 Translation Gold Award

New Weekly Blade Book Award 2023 Book of the Year

Douban's 2023 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

Searchlight Book Reviewer's Best Books List 2023 Top Ten Chinese and Foreign Genre Novels

Jiemian News 2023 Book Recommendations

Duozhaoyu 2023 Fresh Fish List

Elephant News-Sunshine Youth Newspaper's annual book list recommendation

【Celebrity Recommendation】

Han Song, Yao Haijun, He Ping, Miao Wei, Chen Qiufan, Xiao Shu high five recommended

The author of "Babel" is Kuang Lingxiu, who was born in Guangzhou. She keenly captured the relationship between language learning, imperial trade and war. She arranged for the male protagonist Robin to go to Oxford to learn languages, and then arranged for another protagonist to persuade Robin - you must recognize the injustice and injustice of the colonizers and the empire, and you must resist. Robin is in a dilemma. He does not want to disrupt his peaceful study life, nor does he want to go against his conscience. There may be too much about language learning in the first two hundred pages of the novel. Readers expect to see more magic, but the author keeps talking about language learning and translation theory. But if you have patience, you will find the charm of this story. Isn't language magic? This novel set in Oxford University will arouse your interest in language learning.

—— Writer Miao Wei

Babel is a self-referential and ingenious work of art, showing a fictional world where translation is the magic. It also reveals how language, as a powerful weapon of power, is used by imperialism to colonize, manipulate, confuse and create new realities, with immersive characters and a gripping plot. Kuang Lingxiu perfectly balances reality and fiction, academic and popular, and ambitiously breaks the boundaries of genres, which is outstanding.

——Science fiction writer Chen Qiufan

The wonderful magic setting in Kuang Lingxiu's writing opens an alternative history of trade and colonization, culture and technology. Following the protagonist's growth in the academic system, readers are constantly struck by those classic questions: What is the entangled relationship between knowledge production and power operation? The academic stage provided by the Tower of Babel for young people with marginal identities and language talents is also the shelter that the gradually awakening protagonist and his companions have to face painfully. Undoubtedly, this shelter is built with violent bricks and tiles. How to resist? Just like all "patricide" actions, the protagonist must find a gap from the inside of the huge structure he is in, and then detonate it-and the most genuine anger and humiliation in people's hearts are the fuses that have long been hidden in this structure.

——Xiao Shu, host of the science fiction podcast "Amazing"