New Delhi, July 27 -- Dark academia is a sub-genre in fantasy fiction, often involving schools of magic, secret societies and evil experiments in the backdrop of a scholarly environment. But the darkest of dark academia novels is not fantasy at all-in Donna Tartt's The Secret History, the darkness comes not from magic but from human frailty. R.F. Kuang's much-awaited novel Katabasis (HarperCollins India) has much in common with Tartt's-ambitious, jealous, secretive academics; classical allusions; a growing grimness. But it's a hardcore fantasy novel that does something daring: it takes dark academia to its logical conclusion, literal hell.

"I am getting close to the end of a draft of 'Katabasis,' which comes out in 2025. It's another fan...