The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
International Booker Prize-shortlisted author Olga Ravn returns with a new novel that's by turns delicate and visceral, pleasurable but disjointed
Delicate, visceral, yet with slightly indulgent prose, The Wax Child explores Olga Ravn's ongoing preoccupations surrounding motherhood, the body and the surreal. Grounded in the real witch trials of 17th-century Denmark and the fate of noblewoman Christenze Kruckow who was accused of witchcraft, The Wax Child bears witness to the unfolding terror of a nation scouring its women.
Throughout her writing, Ravn explores the common ground between ritual and domesticity, drawing on archival documents, letters and folklore to create a densely atmospheric piece. Mute witness to the unfolding events around her, the titular wax doll becomes positioned as a dangerous and ritualistic totem, yet also takes on a detached vantage point as Ravn unpicks the instrumentalisation of fear, silence and the gathering of women, imparting the same currents of fear to a modern audience in an evocative and lyrical manner.
Ravn’s writing is pleasurable but does not necessarily uncover new ground. Rather, her writing is an exploration of resilience, the cost of motherhood and female connections; ties that bind, ties that break and ties that drip like molten wax. The Wax Child is a short but disjointed read. Like her previous Booker-nominated work The Employees, Ravn draws on speculative and surreal techniques to disorientate her reader and to drive home the fragility of a wax doll; a tchotchke that absorbs and reflects the anxieties of her maker.