In conversation with Olga Ravn

Olga Ravn is undoubtedly one of Denmark’s most acclaimed contemporary authors. She made her international breakthrough with The Employees (2018), which was nominated for the International Booker Prize and made the longlist for the National Book Awards. My Work (2023), a novel about motherhood, work and writing, challenged Danish maternity legislation. In 2026, The Wax Child, about human tyranny, rebellion and witchcraft, was published and subsequently made the longlist for the International Booker Prize. Ravn’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Together with Johanne Lykke Holm, Ravn led the feminist performance group and writing school Hekseskolen in Copenhagen until 2019. In this conversation, Ravn discusses the themes that run throughout her work: the relationship between humans and machines, labour, motherhood and magic. What role do history, feminism and other art forms play in her writing process? And how does she seek out new literary forms to look at the world – and ourselves – differently?