Katabasis
Published on 26. August 2025
Book
Hardback
560 pages
978-0-00-850186-0 (ISBN)
Description
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
2025's most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new No.1 Sunday Times bestselling novel by R.F. Kuang.
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?
'Literary super-stardom doesn't seem too far out of her reach' THE HERALD
'Mind-bending fantasy' GRAZIA
'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
2025's most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new No.1 Sunday Times bestselling novel by R.F. Kuang.
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?
'Literary super-stardom doesn't seem too far out of her reach' THE HERALD
'Mind-bending fantasy' GRAZIA
Reviews / Votes
'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 'Katabasis shines with devastatingly real characters and absorbing world building. Kuang's sentences are delicious, her insights well-earned and deeply affecting' New York Times 'The heretical glee of this novel is irrepressible' Guardian '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 Statesman '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 2022More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 42 mm
Weight
845 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-850186-0 (9780008501860)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
R. F. Kuang
KATABASIS HB
Book
08/2025
Harper Collins Publishers - UK Wholesale Acct
€27.50
No shipping information available
Person
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.