The Wax Child (Signed First Edition)

Ravn, Olga

ISBN 10: 0811238830 / ISBN 13: 9780811238830

Published by New Directions, New York, 2025

About this Item

New York, New Directions, 2025. First edition. Second printing (with number line to 2). Hardbound. Very Fine in a very fine jacket. A pristine unread copy. Publisher's price intact on front jacket flap. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page (name only). Comes with archival-quality mylar jacket protector. Smoke-free. Shipped in a well padded box.Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026 and shortlisted for the NBCC Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, this novel is set in seventeenth-century Denmark, where Christenze Kruckow, an unmarried noblewoman, is accused of witchcraft. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken.

Seller Inventory # Signed-Fiction-Ravn

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Wax Child (Signed First Edition)
• Publisher: New Directions, New York
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811238830
• ISBN 13: 9780811238830
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 2nd Printing
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

An astounding, haunting tale of accused witches―a book of sorcery itself―from the celebrated author of The Employees and My Work

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2026

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NBCC GREGG BARRIOS BOOK IN TRANSLATION PRIZE

In seventeenth-century Denmark, Christenze Kruckow, an unmarried noblewoman, is accused of witchcraft. She and several other women are rumored to be possessed by the Devil, who has come to them in the form of a tall headless man who gives them dark powers: they can steal people's happiness, they have performed unchristian acts, and they can cause pestilence or death. They are all in danger of the stake.

The Wax Child, narrated by a wax doll created by Christenze Kruckow, is an unsettling horror story about brutality and power, nature and witchcraft, set in the fragile communities of premodern Europe.

Deeply researched and steeped in visceral, atmospheric detail, The Wax Child is based on a series of real witchcraft trials that took place in Northern Jutland in the seventeenth century. Full of lush storytelling and alarmingly rich imagination, Olga Ravn also weaves in quotes from original sources such as letters, magical spells and manuals, court documents, and Scandinavian grimoires.

About the Authors

Olga Ravn (born 1986) is a Danish novelist and poet. In collaboration with Danish publisher Gyldendal she edited a selection of Tove Ditlevsen’s texts and books that relaunched Ditlevsen’s readership worldwide. Her novel The Employees was on the shortlist for the Booker Prize in 2021, and The Wax Child was on the longlist for the Booker International Prize and the shortlist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Translation in 2026.

 

Martin Aitken has translated numerous novels from Danish and Norwegian, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Peter Høeg, Ida Jessen, and Kim Leine. He won the PEN Translation Prize for his translation of Hanne Ørstavik’s Love.