R.F. Kuang’s Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is heading to the screen, Deadline reports.
Kuang’s dark academia novel, published in 2022 by Harper Voyager, follows Robin, a Chinese orphan raised in England who joins a secretive group working against British imperialism. The novel won the Nebula and Locus awards; in a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised it as “ambitious and powerful while displaying a deep love of language and literature.”
Screen rights to the novel were optioned by wiip, the studio known for the series White House Plumbers and Mare of Easttown. It produced the hit television adaptation of Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty and recently announced it is developing an adaptation of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ young adult novel Little White Lies.
Temple Hill Entertainment, the company behind screen adaptations of Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl, John Green’sLooking for Alaska, and Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, will produce the Babel adaptation.
“I was so excited by Temple Hill and wiip’s vision for the project. It felt like they were truly dedicated to creating a translation that adds to the story through the unique qualities of a different art form,” Kuang told Deadline.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
