Alice has sacrificed everything to work with Professor Grimes at Cambridge, the world’s greatest magician, but when he dies in a magical accident and is sent to Hell, she and rival Peter follow him, using only tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them. Illustrations. - (Baker & Taylor)

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.

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Alice Law is overcaffeinated, exhausted, and emotionally wrecked. But it's all worth it. Once dissertation advisor Jacob Grimes gives her his recommendation, she'll be well on her way to being one of the best academics in Magick. But then, he explodes. And it might be her fault. So she has only one option: go on down to Hell and retrieve him. Unfortunately, Peter Murdoch, her rival and former friend, has come to the same conclusion, and so the man who always seems to float through the world she has to claw through follows her into Hell. But as the two of them confront panicked shades, impossible choices, and bone-clacking monsters, their trust in each other (or lack of) will decide whether they survive. Kuang revisits dark academia (as she did in the award-winning, best-selling Babel, 2022), this time combining a Magick rooted in paradox with witty world building to give readers a simultaneous satire of and love letter to academia. At turns hilarious and sobering, Katabasis explores the hells we create for ourselves, as Peter and Alice consider the delusions they wrap themselves in and the sacrifices they've made to get this far. Witty, propulsive, feral, and clever. HIGH-DEMAND BACK STORY: After Kuang's Babel (2022) and Yellowface (2023) both became instant best-sellers, Katabasis will be in tremendous demand from fantasy and general readers alike. Copyright 2025 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

When Cambridge professor and magician Jacob Grimes dies in an accident, his grad students Alice and Peter descend into Hell after him. Bestselling and award-winning Kuang's (Babel) latest dark-academia fantasy is available in this standard edition and a deluxe limited edition, with a 500K-copy first printing. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2025 Library Journal

Library Journal Reviews

After the exhaustions of grad school cause Alice to make a basic error that messily kills her advisor, she decides that paying Hell half her life span to bring him back is the only course. Just as she's about to begin her journey, her greatest rival forces his way into her quest. Debating philosophies of the afterlife and the nature of magic proves easier than admitting the cruelty of their undeserving mentor. As Alice and Peter journey through the eight courts of Hell, Kuang's story subtly shifts with each revelation. What begins as a story of academic desperation reveals increasingly greater depths as her characters are forced to confront their inner lives. The novel offers something for each fan of Kuang's, no matter their entry point into her oeuvre. While this will be a sure hit for those who enjoyed Babel, the politics of academia lend themselves to the temptations of Yellowface, and the students' difficult training and journey hold echoes of The Poppy War. VERDICT 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.—Matthew Galloway

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Bestseller Kuang's latest foray into dark academia (after 2022's Babel) takes readers on a clever and deeply cerebral, if sometimes fatiguing, journey through hell. Alice Law is an outstanding graduate student in Cambridge's Analytical Magick program—a field that combines magic, philosophy, linguistics, and mathematics—with a troubled relationship with her adviser, the brilliant Professor Jacob Grimes. When Professor Grimes dies in a gruesome accident, Alice grudgingly agrees to work with her academic rival, Peter Murdoch, to bring him back. Their transformative journey through the underworld is explicitly based on previous sojourns, directly referencing Dante, Orpheus, and more, but Alice and Peter soon find themselves in over their heads in a terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Vivid side characters—like Elspeth, a former Analytical Magick student who died by suicide a decade before and now leads a lively existence on the river Lethe—invigorate what occasionally becomes a dour, plodding trek and persistent readers will be rewarded with a thrilling third act. It's not perfect, but Kuang's devoted fans will find this hits the spot. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Associates. (Aug.)