Alice Law is ambitious, brilliant, and possibly responsible for her professor’s death. Now he’s in Hell, and she’s going after him.
Armed with little more than spell chalk, academic trauma, and centuries-old myths, Alice and her rival Peter Murdoch descend into the underworld on a mission to retrieve the soul of the greatest magician alive—or dead. The only problem? They kind of hate each other. And Hell does not play by thesis-level rules.
In this genre-defying dark academia fantasy, R. F. Kuang blends the sharp intellect of Babel with the caustic wit of Yellowface.
Katabasis is a tale of obsession, redemption, and rivalry wrapped in literary ambition and infernal horrors. Hell has never been so personal. Or so beautifully constructed.
