In Katabasis, an all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.
LitStacker book lovers, gather ’round! LitStack’s got the scoop on Katabasis in presale now. It’s a new book by author R.F. Kuang, and let’s just say, the whispers are getting LOUD. This book is a must read. The publisher, Harper Voyager, is keeping things very close to the vest with this one, teasing us with a glimpse of the cover and a few hints about what’s inside. We’re showing every detail available, from the intriguing cover art and the publisher’s carefully crafted introduction to advance reader praise that will help you pre-order today. Let’s do this.
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In This Spotlight On Katabasis
About Katabasis
Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface.
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:
The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.
That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams….
Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.
With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like.
But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn’t always the answer, and there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.
Alice and Peter fight to be number one in their institution but when their professor dies unexpectedly, they must put their rivalry aside and journey to hell together. Kuang crafts a compelling academic rivals’ relationship and plays with the notion that hell is other people. While not “romance,” per se, there are undercurrents that romance readers will find compelling, all tinged with the darkness that usually hovers over Kuang’s writing.
Still riding the massive wave of magical institutions with a twist, Kuang brings not only the darkness of Hell to life but also the knowledge, power, and darkness that universities and academia have to offer. Consider this book the yin to Babel’s yang!
Praise for Katabasis
“Rich with allusion and illusion, Kuang crafts a witty, gory, harrowing ride that thoroughly roasts the perils and power structures of academia, while never losing sight of what it means to have a fragile, human heart.”—New York Times bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo
“This is a book of ideas, and as such, Kuang’s creativity shines, her vehicle for story a prose that’s smooth as butter. Katabasis is a formidable, timeless work, destined to be a modern classic.”–Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six
R. F. Kuang’s Babel and Yellowface have been massive successes. The Poppy War trilogy continues to sell 7–8,000 copies every year. This book is also available in a Deluxe Limited Edition Hardcover, including stenciled edges, case effects, and illustrated endpapers. (ISBN: 9780063021471). It is a standalone novel that mixes dark academia and literary fiction in the way only Rebecca can.
The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic were listed on TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, and the trilogy as a whole was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Series. Both Babel and Yellowface debuted as a NYT bestselling novel during their first week of publication.
Award-Winning Author R. F. Kuang won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer at the 2020 Hugo Awards, and her novels have been nominated and/or won numerous fantasy awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards.
About R.F. Kuang, Author of Katabasis
Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, and Yellowface. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. A Marshall Scholar, she has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford. She is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale, where she studies diaspora, contemporary Sinophone literature, and Asian American literature.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Harper Voyager
ISBN: Hardcover: 9780063446243
Pub Date: Aug 26, 2025
Titles by R.F. Kuang
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