This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Rebecca Kuang (who writes under the name R.F. Kuang), the author of the best-selling historical fantasy novel *Babel. *Set in the 1830s in England, the novel’s Chinese-born protagonist sets out to prevent a war with China over the opium trade. It’s a novel about the industrial revolution, labor activism, revolution, and — surprisingly — language, etymology, and translation.
2:28 – On Rebecca's own connections to China and her anxieties about losing the Chinese language
8:27 – What historical insights Rebecca hoped her readers would take away from Babel
14:37 – Parallels between the U.K. of the early 19th century and the U.S. of the early 21st
20:26 – Refections on revolution and revolutionaries
25:48 – Silver working: the magic system in *Babel *and its relation to language
30:37 – Issues with translation theory presented in the book
38:04 – How Rebecca’s background in debate influenced her writing style
45:03 – Rebecca's forthcoming novel Yellowface
A transcript of this podcast will be available soon at TheChinaProject.com).
Recommendations:
**Rebecca: *The film Banshees of Inisherin) *and other works by its director, Martin McDonagh, including the dark comedy In Bruges) (2008).
**Kaiser: **The new novel by Cormac McCarthy The Passenger), and a review of it by James Wood )in The New Yorker.
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