Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, …
'I gave them a Kreyòl-French match-pair,' Victoire said. 'And it worked, worked like a charm, only Professor Leblanc said they couldn't put it in the Current Ledger because he didn't see how a Kreyòl match-pair would be useful to anyone who doesn't speak Kreyòl. And then I said it would be of great use to people in Haiti, and then he laughed.'
— Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R. F. Kuang (Page 721 - 722)
This book is so savagely critical of the British empire, but it is rarely didactic. It's usually these little scenes where being a colonizer warps a world view.