Dom

“Why do you call them yi? You must know that they hate it.’ ‘But all it means is “foreign”,’ said Commissioner Lin. ‘They are the ones who insisted on its connotations. They create the insult for themselves.’ ‘Then wouldn’t it be easier just to say yáng?’ ‘Would you let someone come in and tell you what words in your own language mean?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

“Tabby cats were named after a striped silk that was in turn named for its place of origin: a quarter of Baghdad named al-‘Attābiyya.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“The seed ye sow, another reaps; The wealth ye find, another keeps; The robes ye weave, another wears; The arms ye forge, another bears. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, ‘Song to the Men of England”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Robin wondered then how much of Anthony’s life had been spent carefully translating himself to white people, how much of his genial, affable polish was an artful construction to fit a particular idea of a Black man in white England and to afford himself maximum access within an institution like Babel. And he wondered if there would ever be a day that came when all this was unnecessary, when white people would look at him and Anthony and simply listen, when their words would have worth and value because they were uttered, when they would not have to hide who they were, when they wouldn’t have to go through endless distortions just to be understood.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel