Description

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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, in which 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. 

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.

About the Author

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Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, Yellowface, and Katabasis. 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.

Praise For…

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“What an adventure! Katabasis is a tour de force – literate, witty, and wise, it thrills and delights all the way to a hugely satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed it tremendously.” - Gareth Brown, international bestselling author of The Book of Doors
"A philosophical tribute to love, Katabasis is the latest master turn by a master novelist. Under the surface of R.F. Kuang’s rigorous treatment of logic and hell is an endless reservoir of vitality and a deep thirst for life. This timeless search for meaning is for any reader struggling to find purpose in a deeply flawed world." - Vaishnavi Patel, New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi
“‘Katabasis’ shines with devastatingly real characters and absorbing world building.” - New York Times
"A must-read for fans of Naomi Novik, Olivie Blake, and Lev Grossman’s scholastic fantasies, with explorations of purpose, grief, and relationships that open the novel to a more universal audience." - Library Journal (starred review)
"This is a tightly constructed novel that aims a clear lens on academia, with both its faults and its virtues. The heady draw of discovery is ever-present, even if what Alice is discovering is Hell. A learned, literary manifesto on academia—and its darkness.”
- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“There can be no other explanation: Kuang is a wizard. Each character, each sentence, each chapter of Katabasis is like an exquisitely crafted incantation that only Kuang herself could have cast. I was ensorcelled from page one, and once I started reading it I found myself unable to think about anything else until long after I turned the final page. That’s when I realized that Kuang had me right where she wanted me all along: Completely spellbound… and loving every minute of it.” - John Joseph Adams, series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy
"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."  - #1 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
“A balance of literary deep thinking, pop commercial fun, and outrageous audacity. Kuang uniquely and authentically writes the Academy with the right mix of love and rage.” - Rebecca Roanhorse, New York Times bestselling author
"Wickedly sharp and unexpectedly sweet, going to hell has never been this entertaining." - Shannon Chakraborty, New York Times bestselling author of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
“A spellbinding and poignant story that had me riveted to the pages, R.F. Kuang’s KATABASIS is more than a novel to savor. This book is an experience. I envy those who get to read it for the first time.”  
- Rebecca Ross, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divine Rivals