With Her Latest Novel, ‘Katabasis,’ R.F. Kuang Homes in on the Specific Hell of Academia

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 it as a backdrop for a truly original and spellbinding hero’s-journey story that really makes Katabasis shine.

Vogue spoke to Kuang about drawing inspiration from the likes of T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath, the “magic” of revision, and going to the movies to get inspiration between novels.

Vogue: How does the process of releasing Katabasis feel, compared to your previous novels?

R.F. Kuang: This is my sixth time doing this, so at least I know what to expect. Luckily, it all feels pretty nice and good.

What made you decide to set this novel within the often bizarre, sometimes brutal world of academia?

I think it’s just a world that I know really well and have spent a lot of time in. I never really work on more than one project at a time, so when I started my PhD, I wasn’t even thinking of Katabasis.

Which Katabasis character came to you first?

Alice and Peter kind of came as a pair; their dynamic came to me first.

What does the revision process tend to look like for you with fiction?

I think all the magic is in the revision. My first drafts are pretty messy, but I do my best, and then I get really long edits from David, my editor at HarperCollins, and my agent as well. Then I go through and try to make those changes, and then they tell me if it needs more changes. It’s kind of like going back in and painting over and over again and adding more detail. Sometimes the best bits don’t come in until the third or fourth pass, but I really enjoy revisions, actually. The shape is there, and you’re just going in and trying to make things clearer.