Katabasis

A Novel

No cover

R. F. Kuang: Katabasis (2025, HarperCollins Publishers)

560 pages

English language

Published 2025 by HarperCollins Publishers.

ISBN:
978-0-06-302149-5
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(2 reviews)

4 editions

delightful, wicked adventure through hell and academia

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In my review of the author's previous work Babel, I surmised she was best at writing young female characters, which I think is reinforced by this book which has obvious similarities (young Asian-American/British studying magic at Cambridge/Oxford), but now I think she is best when writing satire. In tone, this book really feels more like her previous previous book, Yellowface, which skewered writing (authors, publishers, academia...) with a main character who was an emotional trainwreck. Babel was very serious and informative and took me a year to finish. This book is about hell and academia with a main character who's an emotional trainwreck and I cranked through it in a couple of weeks. Also, there's a cat.

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