I didn’t know that “Dark Academia” was a subgenre until reading R.F. Kuang’s Babel. While not in the same world, Kuang certainly leans into the same genre with Katabasis.

Set in an alternate reality version of Cambridge University, the protagonist Alice Law and her fellow post-grad colleague/rival Peter Murdoch spend the novel trying to rescue their professor from literal hell. As Alice and Peter trudge through the circles of hell, the story of their lives and their relationships with the dearly departed professor are revealed.

Katabasis is a scathing rebuke of the social structures embedded in classical higher education. Tellingly, one of the first stops in hell is a massive library where student-shades must write a thesis answering the question, “what is the good.” Despite having every bibliographic resource at their ghostly fingertips, the souls toil for ages with no feedback on what it takes to pass their thesis.

Like Babel, the magic system of Katabasis is based on linguistics. Paradoxes, when both sides are believed in and owned, have real world effects. This system served the plot well, right to the climax.

Anyone can get wrapped up in Kuang’s story, but readers with personal experience in the labyrinthine corridors of higher education will quickly see the truth in the satire.

Kuang. R.F. Katabasis. Harper Collins, 2025. Epub.