The Wax Child

This week, a new story, Olga Ravn’s 2025 novel, The Wax Child. This book, translated to English from Danish by Matin Aitken, has been nominated for an International Booker Prize.

It begins: “I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and nail parings from the person who is to suffer. I was born by my mistress for forty weeks under her right arm as if I was a proper child, and my wax was softened by her warmth. After this time, she took me to a pastor; it was night, the church was dark and still, and he christened me, the wax child. I was an instrument. This was at Nakkebolle Manor, in southern Funen. My wax mouth cannot be opened.”

‘Kay. This is a story about several women who lived in 17^th century Denmark, although there are initially few references to this so that the story seems untethered to a specific time and place. Unless you’re already familiar with where these places are, you have to look up Funen and Nakkebolle. It is written in present tense and first person, the narrator, the wax child, tells stories about the humans, although as the novel develops, there’s a kind of polyphonic effect as the humans’ speech is shown. We have immediately identified two critical features of this novel, it’s occurrence in historic time, and the fact that the narrator isn’t alive. It’s not dead either, it’s made of wax. We’ll need to examine both of these in depth.

I don’t believe I’ve ever read a story where the narrator isn’t a real person. Of course, since narrators are made up in fiction, this is a provocative idea. In this sense, no narrator is real. But the Wax Child is explicitly an image of a human child (is that different from a made-up narrator, made in the image of a human?)

Oh, stop it!

My point is that there is immediate irony here. The narrator isn’t alive; it is a sort of “mouthpiece” for the author—the implied author, not Ms. Ravn. It is a strong voice in the story, (not the only one though) and the irony is that this is the essential situation of fiction. It’s made-up.

Even more provocatively, things start off with this object saying, “I am a child,” and that “the person who is to suffer” contributes nail parings and hair to it. This “child” reports being carried by her “mistress” for forty weeks and then christened at night by a “pastor” as the Wax Child. What’s going on here? We the reader might begin to wonder if these are references to witchcraft.

(Bell rings). We have a winner!

So, we might conclude that this is a story about witchery, a story with a supernatural bent that involves an object as narrator. Is that what’s going on? This begs the question: what is witchcraft?

“Witchcraft involves the use of magic, spells, and rituals to influence, harm, or heal, often utilizing nature-based, pagan, or, in some historical contexts, demonic, beliefs. Modern practitioners often focus on manifestation, spirituality, and nature…Historically, it was defined by persecution and accusations of pacts with the devil.” 

Yes, best B, this is a story about witchcraft that uses an inanimate object as narrator, an object that communicates with the reader and that has thoughts and feelings.

How can this be? Literally, who is speaking?

“I know the humans well, though they don’t know me. I am an image, in the absence of a child. I have this bottomless shaft-like longing for the woman who made me…There were carriages, horses, and soldiers. There was marjoram and thyme and rose hip. There were ships that journeyed far across the sea to lay claim to territory. There were ships filled with living bodies in the darkness of their holds…And through the towns religious processions went, and chorused wonderful song. The year passed, and the years passed. And I was a wax child. I did not age. I lay in the ground and did not age.”

‘Kay, so the Wax Child is an omniscient narrator who “sees’ far beyond Denmark, and far beyond the 17^th century. I have no problem with that.

At heart, The Wax Child is a story about a group of women in 17^th century Denmark who were witches—they weren’t just accused of being witches, they really were, although this tradition of witchcraft arose out of women healing and solving problems with herbs and spells. And they are gradually discovered by the authorities (all men) and tortured into confession and then condemned and executed. There is some tension over whether the women will actually be killed, as they have trouble believing the authorities will go this far. (Tension which I just destroyed by giving away the ending). There is a meaning within the story of gender conflict, of men believing that women are easily led astray by the Devil. The King of Denmark himself gets involved, believing that this “outbreak” of witches in “his” kingdom, must be rooted out and destroyed. He appears several times, “seen” by the wax child, who reports on his movements and finally shows him in an extended scene at the story’s end.

An important theme in the story is about women having babies or not having them. Christenze, who may be seen as the protagonist, is not married and has no children, but fashions wax in the shape of a child which becomes (somewhat) alive.

What makes the story distinctive is the gorgeous prose, the poetic style, and the narrator being an inanimate object. Another feature which sets The Wax Child apart from other stories about women being persecuted as witches is that these ladies really are witches in contrast to a text like The Crucible, where the emphasis is on persecution.

By the way, a great cover to this edition, no? Please check out the image above.

Next time, we’ll delve deeper.

Till then.

@TheWaxChild @OlgaRavn @AlanBray