There are few novelists more qualified to speak to the insanity of academia than R.F. Kuang. In addition to being the author of six books, including 2023’s critically acclaimed Yellowface , Kuang holds an undergraduate degree in international economics with a minor in Asian studies from Georgetown and graduate degrees in China studies from Cambridge and Oxford. (She’s also been pursuing a PhD at Yale since 2020, NBD.)

Photo: John Packman

Her latest book—the fantasy novel Katabasis , out now from Harper Voyager—revolves around Alice and Peter, two graduate students studying “magick” at Cambridge who set aside their long-held rivalry to make the arduous journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul. The graduate-school milieu is clearly familiar to Kuang, but it’s her skill in using i

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