Book Discussion:
BABEL by R.F. Kuang

Time & Location

April 18, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum
93 Pike St #307, Seattle, WA 98101, USA

About the Event

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum and The Northwest Literary Translators invite you to join us for an in-person book discussion of the prizewinning 2022 novel Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang, led by Folio librarian Lillian Dabney. 

Part steampunk, part imaginative alternative history, part etymology lecture, Babel imagines translators as the increasingly unwilling glue holding together the 18th-century British Empire. 

Read the book (buy or borrow), then join us at Folio for an in-person guided discussion. Please bring a snack or beverage to share if you can.

"Kuang follows her award-winning Poppy War trilogy with an engaging fantasy about the magic of language. Her richly descriptive stand-alone novel about an ever-expanding, alternate-world empire powered by magically enhanced silver talismans scrutinizes linguistics, history, politics, and the social customs of Victorian-era Great Britain." -- Booklist (starred review)

"Babel is a masterpiece. A stunningly brilliant exploration of identity, belonging, the cost of empire and revolution--and the true power of language. Kuang has written the book the world has been waiting for." -- Peng Shepherd, bestselling author of The Cartographers

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