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Babel-17
1966 science fiction novel by Samuel Delany
Babel-17
Babel-17 is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R. Delany. Published by Ace Books in May 1966, it follows Rydra Wong, a poet and linguist recruited during an interstellar war to decipher a language connected to enemy sabotage. Her investigation reveals a language that shapes thought and can make its speakers unwitting saboteurs. Through Rydra's effort to understand and revise it, the novel explores communication, perception, identity, and translation. The novel shared the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel with Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon and was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1967. Retrospective assessments have praised its combination of linguistic speculation, space-opera adventure, and social imagination, while some critics have questioned its linguistic premises and narrative execution.
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