The Wax Child cover art

The Wax Child

The thrilling International Booker-nominated tale of witchcraft

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The Wax Child

By: Olga Ravn, Martin Aitken - translator
Narrated by: Freya Miller
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Summary

A WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2026

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. Soon, it will begin 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.

'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' Sunday Times, Best Books of 2025

‘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

© Olga Ravn 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Genre Fiction Horror Literary Fiction Magic Women's Fiction World Literature Witchcraft Denmark Magic Users

Critic Reviews

The Wax Child proves Olga Ravn’s ahead of the game. She's the strangest - and best - young novelist in Europe
Something truly special. A wonderfully weird novel full of lines that will rattle around in your brain.
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.
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
Gorgeously mercurial. The best historical fiction can turn the driest archival fact into revelation, and here is proof.
A subversive tapestry stitched together with poetry, beauty and violence
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)
All stars
Most relevant
This is a poetic and melancholic reflection witch trials in Denmark, told through the narration of a wax child. It is so concentrated and crystalline, that even though it is a short book, I had to consume it slowly. It is very evocative of the time and place, and genuinely distressing. I was consoling myself that this was not a true story (already a meaningless distinction because I knew such things had happened), but at the end of the book I discovered it was indeed true, and based on court records. I understand the willingness to commit such cruelty. It is a disturbing but also beautiful book.
I also want to pay tribute to the reader- who brought both precision and insight to her performance.

Haunting and poetic

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I suspect the story was quite good, but the narrator sounded like she was reading a shopping list. Maybe better in 1.2 speed 🤔

Probably better if you read it yourself

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