The Wax Child

A hauntingly evocative short novel of witchcraft and persecution from the author of the International Booker-shortlisted The Employees, The Wax Child reimagines the true story of a seventeenth-century Danish witch trial.

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026

Based on a real-life seventeenth century Danish witch trial, The Wax Child tells in vivid prose the story of Christenze Kruckow, a noblewoman long pursued by a scandal of sorcery. People whisper that in her wake one finds illness, death, and unsettling behaviour by pigs and cats.

Some even say she once fashioned out of wax a child, an instrument of the most sinister magic. Christenze will flee the rumours to Aalborg, that great city of seawater and mist. But even there suspicion and fear rule, and once a rumour of witchcraft has taken hold, it can prove hard to shake.

Language: English (Language of text), Danish (Original language of a translated text)

MEDIA REVIEWS

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 VanderMeer