Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

‘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

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 a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel. Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. 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.

26 Aug 2025

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang ISBN 9780008501877