Winner of the Reddit Fantasy Award for Best Debut 2018 'The best fantasy debut of 2018' - WIRED

The searing follow-up to 2018's most celebrated fantasy debut - THE POPPY WAR.

The exciting end to The Poppy War trilogy, R.F. Kuang's acclaimed, award-winning epic fantasy that combines the history of 20th-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating, enthralling effect.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

Oxford, 1836.

The city of dreaming spires.

It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.

And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.

Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift.

Until it became a prison…

But can a student stand against an empire?

An incendiary ne...

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld.

Two academic rivals from Cambridge must travel to hell to rescue the soul of their advisor. Getting there was easy. Surviving it – and each other – is another thing entirely.

2025’s most unexpected love story is going to be hell in the new novel by Sunday Times Number One Bestseller R.F. Kuang