Katabasis (paperback, L)

The bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface spins a sublimely dark and unputdownable tale of two rival Cambridge academics who must join forces on a rescue mission in hell itself.

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld.

Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick. But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him.

But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together.

That’s if they can agree on anything.

Will they triumph, or kill each other trying?

2025’s most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new novel by Sunday Times Number One Bestseller R.F. Kuang. Coming August 2025.

About the Author

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.

Industry Reviews

'Katabasis is a formidable, timeless work, destined to be a modern classic' - OLIVIE BLAKE

'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

'A witty, gory, harrowing ride' - LEIGH BARDUGO

BABEL WAS A BRITISH BOOK OF THE YEAR, BLACKWELL’S BOOK OF THE YEAR, A WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR FINALIST AND THE DAILY MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2022