Katabasis (2025)

Katabasis is a 2025 fantasy novel by American writer R. F. Kuang. It was released on August 26, 2025. The novel follows two magicians, doctoral candidates, who must venture into hell to save their thesis advisor in order to receive letters of recommendation.

Katabasis received mixed reviews, with some critics describing it as overlong and meandering.

Background

In 2023, Kuang announced that she was writing her sixth novel, Katabasis. Kuang wrote it while being enrolled as a PhD student in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University, teaching, and planning her wedding. She stated that the idea for the book came out of a "cute, silly" idea about how "academia is hell" before seriously realizing, "Oh, no, academia is hell."

Plot

Alice Law, a postgraduate student steeped in the arcane arts at Cambridge, practices a dangerous and archaic form of magick. When a mismanaged spell causes her adviser, the influential Professor Jacob Grimes, to perish violently, his spirit is dispatched to Hell. Consumed by what she believes is her own guilt and a desperate need for his letter of recommendation to secure her academic future, Alice resolves to retrieve his soul. The ritual to open a gateway to the underworld demands a steep price: half her remaining lifespan. Her plans are complicated when her academic competitor and colleague, Peter Murdoch, forces his way into her descent. Alice harbors a deep resentment for Peter, who has always been the department's favored student, making his companionship an unwelcome burden on her mission.

Their journey through the afterlife brings them into contact with skeletal beings commanded by Nick and Magnolia Kripke, two amoral magicians on a quest for the Dialetheia, an object capable of creating a True Contradiction. During these encounters, Alice learns that a pentagram Grimes had drawn on her grants a peculiar resistance to the memory-wiping waters of the Lethe. The travelers soon face a test from a divine being, the Weaver Girl, who offers them a choice presented as two apples. Alice's subconscious decision differs from Peter's, an act of disloyalty that leaves him ensnared by the deity. The timely arrival of Elspeth Bayes, a former advisee of Grimes who took her own life years prior, saves them from the Kripkes' minions. However, upon discovering their objective is to rescue Grimes, a furious Elspeth casts them from her boat, abandoning them.

Alone, the two scholars begin to share their histories. Alice discloses that Grimes had assaulted her and that her true intention is vengeance: to bind his spirit to her will, making him her instrument. Peter then admits his own culpability; he intentionally overlooked the fatal error in the spell after the professor stole his research. His plan had been to use a specific incantation to let Alice escape the underworld alone and clear her name. Soon after, they become stuck in an impossible geometric prison constructed by the Kripkes. Peter devises a solution based on the Hangman's Paradox, a logical puzzle that guarantees his own demise but frees Alice. Alone in the Land of Dis, she contrives a stratagem to defeat the Kripkes, luring them and their child into the Lethe, which permanently erases their identities.

Elspeth reappears, bestowing the Dialetheia upon Alice and clarifying that the Kripkes had been hunting her, not Alice, all along. Granted an audience with Lord Yama, the underworld's adjudicator, Alice summons Grimes's shade. The professor attempts to lure her into an eternity of study by his side, but she is no longer under his influence. She rejects him and exchanges his soul for Peter's return. Reunited, Alice and Peter share an immediate, heartfelt kiss. Alice then presents the Dialetheia to Yama, negotiating a final bargain: the restoration of half their sacrificed years and safe passage back to the mortal world.

Critical reception

Reviews

Reviews for Katabasis among critics have been mixed.

In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews stated "this is a tightly constructed novel that aims a clear lens on academia, with both its faults and its virtues" and called it "a learned, literary manifesto on academia—and its darkness." Also in a starred review, Library Journal called the book "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." The reviewer for The Guardian called the book "a celebration of the acrobatics of thought." Writing for The New York Times Book Review, American author Kiersten White wrote "Overall, “Katabasis” shines with devastatingly real characters and absorbing world building. Kuang’s sentences are delicious, her insights well-earned and deeply affecting. She’s also funny." In his Locus Magazine article, Gary K. Wolfe called the book "A rich combination of dream vision, acerbic satire, intellectual playfulness, and human drama." The NPR reviewer raved about Katabasis.

In a more measured review, Publishers Weekly stated "[Kuang] takes readers on a clever and deeply cerebral, if sometimes fatiguing, journey through hell... It’s not perfect, but Kuang’s devoted fans will find this hits the spot."