Babel presents a compelling thesis while weaving a tight and cohesive plot. There's so, so much to think and absorb about imperialism and systems of power, but the story itself is also impossible to put down.

In an alternative 19th century England, words are literally magic. The lost meanings between translations can come to life with the right tools, but what happens when globalization begins introducing foreign concepts to everyday English and the gap between original and translation gets smaller and smaller? The Empire imports.

Following four Translation students, each brought from a different country to provide Babel with new languages to use as resource, the story explores the challenges of being a minority in academia, the comfort of individual success in exchange of systemic change, the ethical dilemma of violence in face of oppression, and the exploitation of POC youth to maintain colonialism. All while presenting the prose as both narrative and academic paper full of footnotes¹.

Babel is enraging, it's heartbreaking, it's purposely Too Much because it's also Too Much for them. The writing is beautiful and the characters fascinating, and even when it was hard to get through heavily detailed descriptions, it was even harder not to care.

¹ Really, really full.