Dark Academia: The Lure of Evil Institutions

Forget exams. Here villainous teachers, treacherous classmates and other evils stand in the way of graduation. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of Dark Academia books, from R.F. Kuang’s award- winning Babel to Olivie Blakes’ The Atlas Six series. Why are readers and writers fascinated with this (perceived) dark side of education? And how much do these book reflect and challenge the institutions we all love, and love to hate