Babel

by R.F. Kuang

So then I asked if I might just translate Omar ibn Said’s Arabic essays into English, given that they’ve just been sitting around for a near decade in our collections,

That would be quite impressive since his autobiography was only written 6 years earlier and most of his significant works even less than that. How did Oxford have a collection sitting around for a decade when he won't be recognized as a significant writer for another 20 years and most of what would make it into a collection hadn't been written yet. This is one of those moments where "woke" trumps accuracy.