In Canton, a child’s family dies around him and Professor Lovell barges in and places a silver bar on the boy to revive him. Once the Chinese boy recovers, he travels by ship to the professor’s English estate where he is tutored for years in Greek and Latin. He substitutes his Chinese name for Robin and enters Oxford where he takes lectures in the Translation Department. There he meets three members of his cohort—Ramy (from Bengal), Victoria (originally from Haiti but brought up in France) and their only English student, Letty. They form a tight group in their first year, but changes occur when first Robin meets his half-brother in hiding, Griffin whose totally different perspective on the Translation Department’s objectives begin to set Robin on a different course.

This is a tale that on the surface appears to be part fantasy, but the underlying themes of racial prejudice, sexism, and British colonial greed ring true and lead these students on a dangerous journey.