Katabasis

Prepare for one hell of a journey…

'A big, bold fantasy romp' GUARDIAN

'R.F. Kuang is making magic' ELLE

'[A] truly original and spellbinding hero's-journey story' VOGUE

'I devoured it' RED

One of the BBC's 25 best books of 2025

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 No.1 Sunday Times bestselling novel by R.F. Kuang.

'Literary super-stardom doesn't seem too far out of her reach' THE HERALD

‘Mind-bending fantasy’ GRAZIA

Reviews

‘It’s Dante’s Inferno meets The Secret History and it’s at the top of our read-next pile’ Elle

'A novel to savour … I envy those who get to read it for the first time' Rebecca Ross

'A witty, gory, harrowing ride' Leigh Bardugo

'A formidable, timeless work, destined to be a modern classic' Olivie Blake

‘A sprawling, erudite tale of magic … teeming with intelligence, ideas and humour’ Marie Claire

'The unrolling of a daring concept' Daily Mail

'An arresting and deeply affecting novel' SFX

'A rich novel of romance, history and magic’ iPaper

'An immersive, worldbuilding adventure … I devoured it' Red

'Profound … Linger[s] on the mind' New Statesmen

'Bitingly funny dark academia' Arts Hub

KATABASIS IS A RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB SUMMER SELECTION, ELLE'S BOOK OF THE MONTH, AND INCLUDED IN THE GUARDIAN'S ROUND-UP OF MOST ANTICIPATED 2025 FICTION.

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

About the author

R.F Kuang is the author of The Poppy War Trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, and Yellowface. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, and British Book Awards. She is pursuing a PhD in East Asian Language and Literature at Yale.