The Wax Child
Published on 6. November 2025
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-0-241-75274-6 (ISBN)
Description
'The Wax Child proves Olga Ravn's ahead of the game. She's the strangest - and best - young novelist in Europe' Telegraph, The Greatest Books of 2025
'Something truly special. A wonderfully weird novel full of lines that will rattle around in your brain' Sunday Times, Best Books of 2025
'An incantation that explores womanhood, motherhood and bodily autonomy. Martin Aitken's mesmerising, exquisitely precise translation is, literally, breathtaking.' Irish Times, Books of the Year
It was a black night in the year 1620 when Christenze Krukow made the wax child, when she melted down beeswax and set it in the image of a small human. For days, she carried it tucked beneath her arm, shaping it with the warmth of her flesh, giving it life. She fashioned for it eyes and ears that cannot open, and yet - it watches and listens.
It looks on as Christenze is haunted by rumour, it hears what the people whisper. It sees how, in the candlelight, she gazes with love at her friends, and hears the things they say in the shadows. It knows pine forest, misty fjord and the crackle of the burning pyre. It observes the violence in men's eyes and the cruelty of their laws. In time, it begins to understand that once a suspicion of witchcraft has taken hold, it can prove impossible to shake...
Based on an infamous seventeenth century Danish witch trial, The Wax Child is the extraordinary new novel from Olga Ravn, one of the most acclaimed and original writers at work today: a mesmerising, frightening vision of a time when witches and magic were as real to the human mind as soil and seawater.
'Olga Ravn is a master and an alchemist. There's nobody else doing quite what she does' Samantha Harvey
'I gulped The Wax Child down and dreamed wild dreams about it. Just brilliant.' Max Porter
'Addictive and unsettling' Claire-Louise Bennett
'Something truly special. A wonderfully weird novel full of lines that will rattle around in your brain' Sunday Times, Best Books of 2025
'An incantation that explores womanhood, motherhood and bodily autonomy. Martin Aitken's mesmerising, exquisitely precise translation is, literally, breathtaking.' Irish Times, Books of the Year
It was a black night in the year 1620 when Christenze Krukow made the wax child, when she melted down beeswax and set it in the image of a small human. For days, she carried it tucked beneath her arm, shaping it with the warmth of her flesh, giving it life. She fashioned for it eyes and ears that cannot open, and yet - it watches and listens.
It looks on as Christenze is haunted by rumour, it hears what the people whisper. It sees how, in the candlelight, she gazes with love at her friends, and hears the things they say in the shadows. It knows pine forest, misty fjord and the crackle of the burning pyre. It observes the violence in men's eyes and the cruelty of their laws. In time, it begins to understand that once a suspicion of witchcraft has taken hold, it can prove impossible to shake...
Based on an infamous seventeenth century Danish witch trial, The Wax Child is the extraordinary new novel from Olga Ravn, one of the most acclaimed and original writers at work today: a mesmerising, frightening vision of a time when witches and magic were as real to the human mind as soil and seawater.
'Olga Ravn is a master and an alchemist. There's nobody else doing quite what she does' Samantha Harvey
'I gulped The Wax Child down and dreamed wild dreams about it. Just brilliant.' Max Porter
'Addictive and unsettling' Claire-Louise Bennett
Reviews / Votes
The Wax Child proves Olga Ravn's ahead of the game. She's the strangest - and best - young novelist in Europe * Telegraph * Something truly special. A wonderfully weird novel full of lines that will rattle around in your brain. * Sunday Times * Every word in The Wax Child feels spontaneous, every scene alive, as if Ravn and Aitken had lived and breathed its mysterious atmospheres in order to deliver them to us. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this haunting, gripping and singular historical novel cast a spell on us. * The International Booker Prize 2026 judges * Olga Ravn is a master and an alchemist. There's nobody else doing quite what she does -- Samantha Harvey I gulped The Wax Child down and dreamed wild dreams about it. Just brilliant. -- Max Porter An incantation that explores womanhood, motherhood and bodily autonomy. Martin Aitken's mesmerising, exquisitely precise translation is, literally, breathtaking. To be read in one sitting, on a dark winter's night * The Irish Times - Books of the year 2025 * Gorgeously mercurial. The best historical fiction can turn the driest archival fact into revelation, and here is proof. * TLS * A subversive tapestry stitched together with poetry, beauty and violence * Financial Times * Addictive and unsettling -- Claire-Louise Bennett An instant classic that feels passed down from centuries ago and yet utterly unique, fresh, and modern. Another stunning, surreal journey from an author who seems to never disappoint -- Jeff VanderMeerMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 202 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
263 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-75274-6 (9780241752746)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
11/2025
Penguin Books Ltd
€10.99
Available for download
Persons
Olga Ravn (Author)
Olga Ravn is one of Denmark's most celebrated contemporary authors. Her novel The Employees was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021, the Ursula K.Le Guin Prize and longlisted for the National Book Awards and the Dublin Literary Award. Her novel My Work won the Politikens Literature Prize in 2021 and led to changes in the country's maternity rights. She has also written shorter pieces for the New Yorker, the Paris Review and Granta.
Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian fiction are widely published. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award and the US National Book Awards, among other prizes. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019 and, for the first book in the Morning Star cycle, the US National Translation Award in Prose in 2022. He lives in Denmark
Olga Ravn is one of Denmark's most celebrated contemporary authors. Her novel The Employees was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021, the Ursula K.Le Guin Prize and longlisted for the National Book Awards and the Dublin Literary Award. Her novel My Work won the Politikens Literature Prize in 2021 and led to changes in the country's maternity rights. She has also written shorter pieces for the New Yorker, the Paris Review and Granta.
Martin Aitken (Translator)
Martin Aitken's translations of Scandinavian fiction are widely published. His work has appeared on the shortlists of the International Booker Prize, the Dublin Literary Award and the US National Book Awards, among other prizes. He received the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019 and, for the first book in the Morning Star cycle, the US National Translation Award in Prose in 2022. He lives in Denmark