Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” In R.F. Kuang’s highly anticipated new novel, Katabasis (Harper Voyager, Aug. 26), Hell is higher education. A mishap with a pentagram has splattered acclaimed magician and Cambridge professor Jacob Grimes all over his lab, leaving stressed-out postgraduate students Alice Law and Peter Murdoch without someone to lead their respective dissertation committees and provide the recommendation letters essential to their academic careers.

So, naturally, the only option is to go to Hell and retrieve their academic adviser.

Over Zoom, we recently discussed the light and dark sides of both academia and Hell with the author, who has earned two master’s degrees (one at Oxford, one at Cambridge) and is currently working on a Ph.D. at Yale. Our conversation about Katabasis (pronounced kuh-TAB-uh-sis, for those of us who don’t have Kuang’s facility with Greek) has been edited for length and clarity.

Could you explain the meaning of the title and why you chose it?

It’s a Greek word that means “the hero’s journey to the underworld.” In modern usage, it doesn’t have to be a literal journey to the underworld. For example, a narrative about addiction or personal grief or trauma is also sometimes described as a katabasis. It’s the protagonist reaching the lowest of the lows, really entering their own personal hell, and then coming back up to the surface. I was interested in this story archetype, and it’s just a nice word. I was surprised when they let me keep that title, because usually my working titles get rejected.

The cover also feels significant; it’s got a real Escher quality to it.

Yes, it’s the visual representation of the paradoxes that the magic system in the book is built upon. You think you’re going up the stairs, and then you step back and realize you’re caught in this loop, which is a good metaphor for the psychological journeys that our characters are on. They are trying so hard to achieve what they think they want, but really they’re like rats in a cage scurrying around. You don’t get that perspective from within it. You only get that perspective if you step outside.

And, presumably, naming your protagonist Alice is not random.

No, neither is Peter. They are very deliberate nods to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan, and they’re significant for the character arcs. Alice’s issue is that she’s too curious and it gets her in trouble. And she’s also on this journey through a world that feels like nonsense, and the ground keeps shifting under her feet. And Peter’s issue is that he hasn’t grown up; he’s still like a little boy in a lot of respects. His journey involves acknowledging his relative affluence and his luck and maturing because of that realization.

Katabasis takes a close look at the terrible pressure put on students, and the way that they grow to accept that kind of stress as normal. Alice and Peter almost seem to have Stockholm syndrome.

Peter and Alice absolutely have Stockholm syndrome. They’ve grown up within the system, and they’ve been taught to believe that there is no worthy life outside of it. Academia is founded on delusions. There are so many things about the system that are broken. I’m fascinated by how many people still go through these programs and cling to this vanishing, irrational belief that this is still the best possible way that they could be spending their lives. I mean, the job market was never good, but it’s especially vanishing at this moment. Plus, there’s the way that the bureaucracy and the incentive structure are set up. It all seems to work counter to what we would hope is the ideal goal of the university, which is producing knowledge and talking through difficult questions and sitting with interesting texts. Instead, there are a lot of rubber stamps and a lot of nonsense and managing of egos that you have to do. I think this is what drives a lot of people out of academia. I ask myself every morning, Should I quit? Do I want to stay?

And then there are the abusive professors, like the novel’s Jacob Grimes. What inspired you to create him?

I’m really interested in student-teacher relationships and dynamics, having been on both sides of that equation. It can be so enriching for both parties. But because of that close contact between minds, where one is in a position of power and the other in a position of relative vulnerability, there’s a huge potential for abuse.

I’m interested in what happens when those obligations are violated: when teachers don’t act as they should, or when students idealize the teachers and obey them even when they shouldn’t. Aside from the abusive egoism, and the misogyny, and the possibility of sexual assault, there’s also the trope of the mentor who pushes you much further than you’re able to accept.

Grimes is this horrendous advisor who is demeaning and insults his students all the time and gives them impossible tasks. And Alice and Peter are like, Sign me up. That’s what it takes to be a great magician. They make excuses for his behavior because they think that the only path to greatness is to undergo all of these trials and that he’s the only one who can shepherd them through it. This mentality is so, so common in any high-intensity academic or athletic or musical program.

In this case, that path leads straight to Hell. What rules were important to establish when you built your version of Hell?

Well, part of my approach to my magic systems is that I never want them to feel fully known or easy to master. I get really frustrated with other fantasy novels where it seems like everything that could be known about magic is already established. Since a lot of my protagonists are students, magic is a field of study where the questions outnumber the answers. They have some idea of what’s going on, but they have to do endless research, consult old texts, double-check and verify their work. Alice and Peter have no idea what to expect from Hell, and they also don’t know which old sources are right and which are made up. It’s a constant journey of discovery. I do try to be as broad and eclectic and diverse with my sources as I can, just to point out the sheer volume of mythologies and theologies about Hell.

I’m personally skeptical of the idea of an eternal Hell. Most Christian theologists today think that hell is more of a construct, a useful metaphor, than a real place where souls are condemned for eternity, because that just makes no sense. It doesn’t really to me, either, which is why I thought it was fascinating.

Certainly, it’s very difficult to escape Hell in this book.

Well, of course, the idea is that redemption is really, really hard. I did a lot of reading about abolition theory. The spiritual process of coming to terms with an awful sin often involves completely changing who you are, resulting in the death of the person who committed that sin and the rebirth of a person who’s got to keep on living. It is a very difficult process in life and presumably in the afterlife. But I firmly believe it is possible. Redemption is always possible.

Amy Goldschlager is a writer and editor in Brooklyn.