The Wax Child

Based on a real-life seventeenth century Danish witch trial, The Wax Child tells in vivid prose the story of Christenze Kruckow, a noblewoman long pursued by a scandal of sorcery. People whisper that in her wake one finds illness, death, and unsettling behaviour by pigs and cats. Some even say she once fashioned out of wax a child, an instrument of the most sinister magic. Christenze will flee the rumours to Aalborg, that great city of seawater and mist. But even there suspicion and fear rule, and once a rumour of witchcraft has taken hold, it can prove hard to shake...

Olga Sofia Ravn is a Danish poet and novelist. Initially she published poetry which was acclaimed by the critics, as was her first novel Celestine. She is also a translator and has worked as a literary critic for Politiken and several other Danish publications.

Martin Aitken hails from the north of England and studied community theatre and creative writing in Newcastle before settling in Denmark. He holds a PhD in Linguistics and gave up academic tenure to translate Scandinavian literature. Since then he has translated a wealth of contemporary novels, short stories and occasionally poetry. His work, primarily from Danish and Norwegian, has been shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award (2017), the US National Book Awards (2018), the International Booker Prize (2021) and the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize (2022). He received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Prize in 2012, the PEN America Translation Prize in 2019 and the US National Translation Award in Prose in 2022. Authors whose work he translates include Olga Ravn, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Helle Helle, Hanne Ørstavik, Fine Gråbøl, Kim Leine, Josefine Klougart and Ida Jessen.