Dark academia is a popular genre among young readers, and it has made a resurgence over the last decade or so. Babel, R.F. Kuang’s powerhouse of a novel published in 2022, is the dark academia book of the 2020s, sitting next to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and M.L Rio’s If We Were Villains of the top shelf. Unlike these two novels though, Babel is a historical fiction novel set in the 1830s, and our main character, Robin Swift, is Chinese. but more about that later.

Babel, Babel: An Arcane History, or its full title, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution, follows Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, who is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese in preparation for his enrolment in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s centre for translation and – more importantly – magic. Silver-working, the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars, has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonisation. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realises serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organisation dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide – Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Robin Swift is not his real name, but by design, we never learn his real name. It is part of the narrative and the deeper themes of the book. Robin, malleable as a young boy with no family left, has almost every aspect of his Chinese upbringing wiped from his being apart from his Cantonese and Mandarin because knowing these languages is useful for his position as a translator. It is not until he is at Oxford, away from Professor Lovell, that he begins to understand what he is slowly turning into. Ramy, stalwart and patriotic, helps him see that he doesn’t need to hide himself or assimilate, and how Victoire and Letty are treated also highlights the absurdity and bigotry of the traditionalist institutions. We also have Griffin and the Hermes Society, our rebellious force among the prim and proper Oxford scholars.

This historical setting is the perfect choice for the themes and characters, giving them the chance to truly encapsulate the aspects of greatest meaning and significance in the story. The British Empire in the 1800s was competing with other nations and empires to colonise the world, regardless of who actually occupied the land. Colonialism is a must-have theme and topic for a critical dark academia novel, in my opinion, as critiques of the education system and what gets to be taught are heavily rooted in elitism, racism, classism and colonialism. With this historical setting, we also have the addition of sexism, and in the first book alone you can see how misogynistic the education system, the institution, and those in power are. This historical setting supports many additional aspects of the story world, such as the silver-working and the importance of importing silver from other lands. It adds a certain layer of brutality to it, or perhaps I should say another layer of brutality.

My favourite idea in Babel is ‘an act of translation is always an act of betrayal’. I have seen it used as sprayed edge text for special editions, but it is such a great sum-up of the books main themes and narrative trajectory. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I believe this is a novel many readers can enjoy and learn something from, but Babel truly is a novel that will make you think. This is the R.F. Kuang’s social commentary novel that I recommend instead of Yellowface because we actually get some real depth and intention with the themes and actions of this book. Those who don’t know about colonial rule, the impact of colonialism on native peoples and lands, and the long-lasting effects of colonialism with definitely learn something worth while here.

Babel was a favourite of 2023 for a reason, and I hope anyone who hasn’t read Babel yet will use this post as the final push to give it a go. It is intense, dark, and brings new voices to the dark academia sphere – non-white characters and experiences – I hope to see more of in 2025.