She Who Remains

Though the International Booker Prize longlist contains a number of well-known names, it also features writers appearing in English for the first time. She Who Remains (translated by Izidora Angel) is Bulgarian author Rene Karabash’s debut novel, originally published in 2018. Much of the novel is set in Albania and focuses on the traditions of the Kanun which she researched prior to writing. Anyone familiar with the work of Ismail Kadare (quoted as the novel begins) will have encountered this concept before, a social structure based on honour and revenge which has outlasted various political systems. Two aspects of this influence the events of the novel: firstly, when Bekija / Matija declares she will become a ‘sworn virgin’ rather than marry, and secondly, when a member of her family must be killed as a result of the cancelled wedding.

The character’s two names represent her change from bride to sworn virgin as she must not only “preserve my virginal innocence” but also renounce her womanhood and live as a man:

“I shall take the masculine name Matija as my only given name and may the women cut off my hair and may my dresses turn to ash and may the clothes of a man become one with my back, my legs, my skin.”

The novel opens with this event, but we will also learn about Bekija’s childhood, from the moment in the womb where she hears her father’s “iskam sin” (I want a son). One of twins, the other (a boy) no longer appears on the ultrasound after her mother bleeds and her name, Bekija, means ‘she who remains’.

“my father didn’t touch me for the first year of my life, avoided me in the house, didn’t speak to me…”

However, when a son, Sale, is born, he is physically feeble and it is Bekija who becomes her father’s favourite, goes hunting with him, and is given the nickname ‘daddy’s boy’.  It is quickly clear that this is novel which questions gender stereotypes set in a society where such rigid roles go unquestioned. This is also developed through Bekija’s friendship with Dhana, a girl the same age but “taller and more beautiful” who Bekija is both attracted to but ashamed of, “like a relative I was embarrassed by”.

The cancelled wedding lies at the heart of the novel as it influences the fate of all the characters. In the novel’s first part, Bekija tells us that before her wedding she is raped by Kuka, the ‘village idiot’ – “I touch where the wet is, I see blood on my fingers.”

“whom would they believe, him or me, what do you think, there’s no point in telling anyone”

The incident is significant as, if she is not a virgin on her wedding night, her husband must kill her, so she tells her family she will become a sworn virgin rather than marrying. She must then choose between her father and her brother to pay the price for this as the other family must take revenge. At this point it seems as if she has selfishly given up another life to save her own, but, as we will discover, we have not heard the whole truth about what happened to her, or who witnessed it. She chooses her brother, but we already know Sale does not die as the narrative is interspersed with letters he has written to his sister from Sofia.

Though the novel is not told chronologically, Karabash cleverly leaves much to be revealed in the shorter second part. It is written in short chapters with a disregard for sentences; often in Bekija’s voice – or voices (Karabash uses the conceit that she is telling the story to a journalist at points, but at others it reads like stream of consciousness). Not only do Sale’s letters provide an alternative voice, but the direct speech of characters sits side by side with her thoughts as if their voices are echoing in her head. There is a fluidity to it that reflects the gender fluid nature of her life.

Despite this elegant construction, She Who Remains relies on a coincidence that Dickens would be proud of to tie up its various plot threads and provide the emotional impact of its second part. This allows it to present a more hopeful denouement than we might have expected. It is a novel that well deserves its place on the long list, though it seems an unlikely winner. Though the Kanun may be an archaic echo of patriarchal violence, the novel’s exploration of society’s need to excise difference, particularly when it comes to gender, is more relevant than ever.

The Wax Child

Olga Ravn’s first novel to be translated into English, The Employees, is set in the 22^nd century and features such science fiction staples as androids and spaceships; her second, My Work, is a more autobiographical work drawing on her own experience of motherhood. Now comes The Wax Child, a historical novel (translated like The Employees by Martin Aitken) based on witch trials which took place in Jutland in the early seventeenth century. Ravn is clearly comfortable across a number of genres and here draws on a range of historical documents including spells. The novel originated in a play Ravn wrote, Hex, which premiered in 2023, but its existence as a piece of prose fiction began with the voice, the wax child of the title, a wax doll made by Christenze Kruckow, one of the accused:

“I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and fingernail parings from the person who is to suffer.”

Though Christenze has aristocratic blood, she is poor. Her ancestry confers on her a certain entitlement but in her own mind she considers herself untouchable:

“She fully believed they would never seize her. That she was as invincible as a star… but to me my mistress was harmless, as invincible as the foam that tops the wave as it crests into its final peak.”

She is first accused of witchcraft when the woman in whose house she lives has a succession of stillbirths but she escapes to Aalberg where she meets Maren, who will also be accused. Maren introduces Christenze to other women who meet regularly to spin wool and share their stories. Do they believe they are witches? There is certainly superstition in their remedies but Ravn leaves their actions and motivations deliberately vague. In part at least there is an attempt to help other women, such as Elisabeth, the preacher’s wife, though her description when they ask about her marital problems foreshadows her later betrayal:

“A feral look darted in Elisabeth’s eyes, like an animal crossing her way, her jaw tightened and she nodded her head.”

The novel’s second part is ‘A Witch Trial’, a process that lasts many months, though as Ravn points out in an afterword, she has actually condensed events. As well as the expected horrors of torture, Ravn includes moments such a conversation between members of the town council on the cost of execution should they proceed with the accusations. Throughout Christenze believes her arrest is an error, not because she is innocent but because she is noble:

“Soon they will realise their mistake in keeping me here. Soon a letter will come from the king and explain it to them.”

In a scene one hopes also features in the play, Christenze will eventually meet the king who appears, still blindfolded, having been indulging in a game of blind man’s bluff. While the symbolism may be overt, the scene is so beautifully written, both comic and tragic, that it works perfectly. But while that may owe something to the novel’s dramatic origins, it is the novel’s voice that marks it out as something special. Though the wax child refers to Christenze as ‘mistress’, the narrative voice is more powerful than any of the human characters, ranging omnisciently through place and time:

“And I was in the king’s ear, and I was in the king’s mouth, he would go on to live for many more years and try out many eiderdowns…”

Similarly, the choice to scatter spells throughout effortlessly enhances both the historical and supernatural elements of the novel. Moreover such spells are often placed to highlight events, for example when Christenze and Maren meet:

“If you are enchanted by forbidden love of a woman, you must put on a pair of shoes and walk about until the feet heat… Remove then the right shoe and drink from it some wine or ale, and at once all love for her will be lost.”

Whether we see the wax child as an endorsement of a darker power, a plea for a wider perspective, or simply a technical response to a writing problem, it provides the novel with both its depth and propulsion and further enhances Ravn’s reputation as a master (mistress?) of all genres. It has very chance of reaching the Internationale Booker shortlist.