The Wax Child

The Wax Child / Olga Ravn
trans. from the Danish by Martin Aitken
TO: Book*hug Press, 2025, c2023.
200 p.

Another book on the International Booker longlist, I wanted to read this because of the author - I've read her speculative novel The Employees and was curious how she'd write a historical novel. 

The Wax Child is inspired by a real-life witch trial in the 17th century. The text incorporates quotes from letters, manuals, court documents and grimoires from that time. The writing is dense, full of imagery and visceral detail, and grounds the reader in the era. 

This is the story of Christenze Kruckow, an unmarried noblewoman who is accused of witchcraft along with a circle of other women. She is accused of all sorts of things, even of making a wax child, a dark magic. The book is narrated by the wax child, observing her maker and all the others before and while they go through the trials. This technique of a removed observer works well here, allowing a broader perspective than just that of Christenze, but it also creates uncertainty in the reader -- if the wax child is telling us this story, how much of the activity of witchcraft that they are accused of actually happened? Was there something going on, or is this just another example of men upset by women finding strength and solidarity together? 

I thought this was a great read. It's dark, and hard to read in parts, but the setting and the writing itself are both so powerful. Ravn recreates the suffocating atmosphere of this trial, and of women's lives, particularly unmarried women's lives, in this era. And she shows how these elements are still relevant to contemporary readers, but not in an obvious or didactic way -- it just comes through in the writing. This was a memorable read, one that has stuck with me.