Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken and published in August 2025

Though novels about witch trials are nothing new, this wonderful new novella from Olga Ravn stubbornly refuses to go the way any of them has gone before.

What it is, is an experimental novella set in the 1600s, conjuring images and moments from factual witch trials of several Danish women held in the early to middle 1600s, told in a poetic style which enhances the darkness of the subject matter, and makes it stand out from the rest in the genre.

I didn’t like Ravn’s previous novel, The Employees, about humans and humanoid robots exploring a strange planet, but it was imaginative. This however, demonstrates her talents and establishes her as a writer to watch.

From the outset it subverts expectation, in that it is narrated by a wax doll. The doll belongs to Christenze Kruckow, an unmarried noblewoman living in 17th century Denmark, though quite why she has it, we can only guess. Christenza maybe noble, but she is poor, and when another woman in her household accuses her of being a witch, she flees to Aalborg. She cannot escape the finger-pointing though, and soon the political establishment start proceedings to find out what is going on.

In any summary though the plot may sound used and tired, but the fascination is in the voice of the narrator, the wax child, clearly more than just a doll, that reads like an incantation, almost in verse. The novel is based on actual events, and the style of writing that Ravn uses reflects her source material, letters, court documents, and notably, magic spells and grimoires of Norse folklore.

My Goodreads score 5 / 5