Insert the lady gaga gif: Talented. Brilliant. Incredible. Amazing.

This was dark academia but also so much more than that genre could ever suggest. Kuang builds something so complex and deep, providing so many different ideas to lose yourself in. It’s a book where you could just randomly select a quote and stew on it for a long time. The idea of translation, of bridging ways of perceiving and communicating the world, is something that I’ve thought about but never in such a rigorous way. I’ve also thought a bit about academia’s place in the colonial project of violence, but this has just made these connections so clear and so salient. The book was academic and nerdy, but never in a way that felt inaccessible. This is a book that will be on my mind for a while, I’m thinking this will be a rare reread, but this time with a highlighter.

“The obstacle was not the struggle, but the failure to imagine it was possible at all, the compulsion to cling to the safe, the survivable status quo.”