In 2025 I read The Wax Child by Olga Ravn.
I received a digital ARC of this from New Direction last year. I typically hate reading novels on my computer, but I tore through this one ravenously.
Ravn’s oeuvre has been focused on agency and labor. This latest novel, a modern "it-narrative," represents a continuation and deepening of these themes by telling the story entirely from the perspective of an inanimate effigy (the titular “wax child”), which represents a 17th c. woman's desire for agency in a world that denies it.
If you haven’t read Ravn yet, now is a great time to start. The Employees is a good place to start. My Work is not for the faint of heart. And this latest offering represents the marriage and refinement of her poetic voice with the more overt themes of motherhood she explored in the latter.