The Wax Child

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Brought to you by Penguin.

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.

© Olga Ravn 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

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
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
Gorgeously mercurial. The best historical fiction can turn the driest archival fact into revelation, and here is proof.
TLS
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
Drawing on folklore, superstition, gossip and historic truth, frequently blending the borders between all four, The Wax Child weaves its strange awful magic like a spell
Daily Mail
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

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