Robin Swift
A Chinese student taken from Canton and raised by Richard Lovell for service at Babel. His hunger for belonging gradually gives way to anti-colonial resistance, grief, and a willingness to destroy the institution he once loved.
Ramiz "Ramy" Rafi Mirza
Robin's Indian Muslim roommate and closest friend. Witty and sociable, Ramy learned to perform deference under British rule but becomes a committed member of Hermes.
Victoire Desgraves
A Haitian-born student raised in France after being illegally enslaved. She is a gifted translator of French and Kreyòl whose political resolve is matched by a fierce commitment to survival.
Letitia "Letty" Price
A wealthy white English student denied opportunities because she is a woman. She loves her cohort but cannot accept how her racial and national privilege separates her experience from theirs, leading her to betray Hermes.
Professor Richard Lovell
Robin and Griffin's English father, though he refuses to acknowledge them as sons. A Babel professor who collects talented Chinese boys for the empire, he combines intellectual cultivation with racism, neglect, and physical abuse.
Griffin Lovell
Robin's older half-brother and a former Babel student. He works for Hermes, believes imperial violence must be answered with revolutionary violence, and acts as both mentor and warning to Robin.
Anthony Ribben
A Black Babel student and important Hermes organizer. Having survived enslavement and experienced Oxford's conditional welcome, he is committed to building an international anti-colonial movement. He is killed by police in the raid on the Old Library.
Professor Playfair
A leading silver-worker who teaches Robin's cohort. He appreciates linguistic brilliance while treating foreign peoples chiefly as resources for British power.
Professor Chakravarti
An Indian-born Babel scholar who understands the compromises required to work within Oxford. He initially supports the strike but ultimately rejects Robin's increasingly vengeful course.
Professor Craft
A woman teaching at Babel despite Oxford's restrictions on women. She supports the students' seizure of the tower and remains with Robin at the end.
Commissioner Lin Zexu
The Qing official charged with suppressing the opium trade. His destruction of British opium provides the empire with the excuse for war it has been seeking.
Sterling Jones
A former member of Griffin and Evie Brooke's cohort who becomes an agent of the British state. He tortures Robin and represents the path of complete service to the institution.
Evie Brooke
A deceased former Babel student whose research and fate connect Griffin, Sterling, and the earlier failure of their cohort. Her death becomes part of the competing stories Babel and Hermes tell Robin.
Abel
A leader among the Oxford workers who support the strike. He reminds the Babel students that the consequences of silver failure fall heavily on ordinary people.
Ibrahim, Meghana, Juliana, and Yusuf
Students who join the occupation of Babel. Their different decisions at the end emphasize that resistance may require both sacrifice and survival.
Spoiler Warning and Content Note
The summaries below reveal the entire novel, including Ramy's death and the destruction of Babel. The book contains racism and racial slurs, colonial violence, child abuse, drug addiction, torture, murder, suicide, and mass-casualty events.