The Wax Child

The Wax Child proves Olga Ravn’s ahead of the game. She’s the strangest - and best - young novelist in Europe * Telegraph *Olga Ravn is a master and an alchemist. There’s nobody else doing quite what she does – Samantha HarveyI gulped The Wax Child down and dreamed wild dreams about it. Just brilliant. – Max Porter Addictive and unsettling – Claire-Louise BennettAn 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 *Dark and strange and beautiful and completely gripping – Mark HaddonThe 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 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.