The Wax Child

Olga Ravn, Martin Aitken

$35

Hardback

Forthcoming
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Danish

Viking
11 November 2025

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Horror & ghost stories; Historical fiction; Fiction in translation; Witchcraft

Unlike anything you've read before, The Wax Child is an extraordinary tale of witchcraft from one of the most visionary writers at work today

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.

By: Olga Ravn
Translated by: Martin Aitken
Imprint: Viking
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 204mm, Width: 132mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9780241752746
ISBN 10: 0241752744
Pages: 144
Publication Date: 11 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

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 has translated the works of many Scandinavian writers, among them Karl Ove Knausgaard, Helle Helle, Hanne rstavik and Olga Ravn. He lives in Denmark.

Reviews for The Wax Child

Olga Ravn is a master and an alchemist. There's nobody else doing quite what she does -- Samantha Harvey 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 VanderMeer A spellbinding tale of loss and longing. A magnificent book. A true masterpiece of both substance and style. * Kirkus * Sinister magic and folk-horror combine into a novel that is as creepingly atmospheric as it is formally impressive. * Foyles Best Translated Fiction of 2025 * Dark and strange and beautiful and completely gripping -- Mark Haddon The Wax Child has emerged from an imagination that is wild, visionary, and absolutely original. It is beautiful, eerie, sublime, and, like a fingerprint or a snowflake, only one of its kind. Olga Ravn is a roof-raisingly brilliant writer -- Neel Mukherjee Olga Ravn tugs skillfully at the treads of reality, subtly distorting events to reveal hidden, dislocated truths * The New York Times * Olga Ravn descends into a dark historical world of fear and danger, nightmarish fantasy, sordid suffering and blood. Magic is portrayed as a real power not only to be feared, but aspired to by an underclass of disadvantaged yet defiant women -- Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of All Witches