One of the main themes of the International Booker longlist is witchcraft – or the perception that women left to their own devices are dangerous and menacing – especially when they band together. I read three in a row that dealt with this topic and, on the whole, found them more congenial than the other recurring topic on the longlist, namely war. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I think these are the ones that deserve to go on the shortlist – which is being announced at this very minute – but I preferred two of the ones I’m briefly reviewing today to the others I’ve read.
Sharnush Parsipur: Women Without Men, transl. Faridoun Farrokh, Penguin, 2026
This book was published quite a while ago in 1989 and was almost immediately banned in Iran, although it seems fairly innocuous in our present time and society. I suppose in strict Muslim tradition, the very fact that women from all strata of society might choose to live alone, without a male guardian, and move together to the house of one of them, a wealthy widow, is shocking and iconoclastic. This is the second translation of the book (and was originally published in 2011), while the first translation by Talatoff and Sharlat was published in 1998. This makes me question the eligibility criteria for the International Booker.
The novel (or novella, rather, as it is quite short and finishes somewhat abruptly for my taste) is set in 1950s Iran but refers to political events only obliquely.
Farrokhlaqa is the widow who, after feeling stagnant after 32 years of marriage, finally decides to do something as she pleases and acquires a summer villa and garden in Karaj, where she wants to start a literary salon and further her social network and political ambitions. This doesn’t quite work according to plan, but four other women find refuge there temporarily. These include Faizeh and Munis, friends who have completely bought into the patriarchal idea that their virginity is priceless. A complicated unrequited love and domineering, violent brother who tries to kill his sister for dishonouring the family name lead to them fleeing together, but they are assaulted and raped on their way there. Zarrinkolah is a prostitute who has started to see all of her clients as headless men: she comes to Karaj in the hope of being cured. Finally, Mahdokht is a school teacher who is so horrified by the thought of sex that she becomes a tree in their garden. What is significant, however, is that the women (at least the ones that have not been turned into trees or given birth to flowers) have to return to Tehran in the end – their idyllic life as women without men is temporary at best. And even in the villa, they are never entirely without men, since the gardener is a man and ultimately marries Zarrinkolah.
Here is a brief quote from one of the more successful passages in the book (to my mind):
As soon as the gardener left, singing could be heard in the garden. The guests fell silent, transfixed where they were. It was as if they were all encased in a drop of water the size of an ocean. Slowly seeping through the layers of the earth, the drop joined a myriad of elements at the earth’s inner core in a dance, a perpetual, harmonic movement with no beginning or end. It was simultaneously slow and rapid. The guests’ arms lifted and began to swing overhead, hanging like ropes from the sky, moving so quickly they appeared as a shadow… Then a green mist set in, engulfing everything and everyone – one color of the rainbow dominating all other colors. All who were present were dissolved into the mist, and then dripped like dewdrops from the tip of a leaf. At nightfall the tree stopped singing. The guests left the garden noiselessly, wordlessly, entranced by the song they had heard.
I wanted to love this book but it just didn’t work for me. The tree imagery and other magical realist touches are typical of both Persian literature and also art created under a dictatorship, which is forced to convey things very metaphorically. So I could have got on board with that, but the style was simply not as memorable or remarkable as I’d hoped. Possibly revolutionary for its time in Iran, but felt past its prime nowadays.
Marie NDiaye: The Witch, transl. Jordan Stump, MacLehose, 2026
This book took a long time to get translated: it was originally published in French in 1996, but the translator has done a good job of conveying it in very breezy, contemporary language, which made me think of novels set in American suburbia or small towns in Britain. Except the housewife narrating the story, Lucie, is not just lacking in confidence, slightly wary of her teenage daughters and trapped in a mediocre marriage – she is also a witch, coming from a long line of witches. Her abilities are very humdrum, compared to her mother’s (who opted not to use them, however), but she does initiate her twin daughters into the family’s ability to see into the future. Although they don’t take it seriously at first, their abilities soon outpace their mother’s.
I found it fascinating how the book blends the mundane (the opinionated neighbour, for instance, who intimidates Lucie – who finds herself both mocking her and yet craving her good opinion) with the magical. Why does this book succeed while Parsipur’s book doesn’t? I think the translation plays a big part: it sounds modern and fresh, as if the novel had been written just a couple of years ago. There are also moments of wry humour which I enjoyed. Am I being biased because it sounds so familiar, from the countless psychological thrillers I’ve read featuring a similar setting? An upmarket housing development, marital problems, female rivalries, the anxieties of motherhood and feeling the daughters slipping away. I always thought that I didn’t require relatability to appreciate a book, yet here I am saying exactly that: I found this novel and its narrator more relatable.
I closed my eyes and dozed for a few minutes. When I woke up, my daughters were gone… two large birds appeared, their wings brushing the compartment window. They flew off, disappeared from view. Then, in a joyful swoop, they came back to touch their wings to the glass, and I smiled at them in relief. They stared at me with their cold, scheming eyes – who was I to these crows? Who was I, now, to my daughters, who were perhaps fond enough of me, but already such accomplished witches that they couldn’t repress a sort of superior indifference toward their untalented mother?
This story also stands as a metaphor for men fearing or despising women’s skills and powers, while women do their best to diminish themselves for fear of overshadowing their partner. Yet the younger generation don’t seem to fear showing off their powers and Lucie ponders about the difference between her and her daughters.
Every day my talent seemed to fade a bit more – what was it about me, I asked myself, that kept me from being a good witch? Did I lack the will, the intensity, the rage? Most of all, I thought, what I lacked was a taste for power and a disdain for fate.
Unlike the women in the other two novels I’m reviewing today, Lucie does not really find sisterhood or support in other women: her neighbour bullies and uses her, her sister-in-law despises her, her mother-in-law only cares about her own feelings of abandonment. I’d quite like to see this one on the shortlist, I think, but there are four books I haven’t read yet, and some of them are highly regarded by my fellow Shadow Panellists, so…
Olga Ravn: The Wax Child, transl. Martin Aitken, Viking, 2025
This novel is more typical of the witchcraft type novels we’ve been led to expect: it examines in fictional format the true story of a 17th century witch hunt and trial in Northern Jutland in Denmark. It is told from the point of view of a wax figurine, a small child-like figure made out of melted beeswax by noblewoman Christenze, who has suffered one miscarriage after another. Christenze finds comfort in her speechless waxen companion, and soon finds comfort and companionship with other women in Aalborg, first and foremost the charismatic Maren Kneppis. The women meet, spin wool, talk about their troubles with their husbands or communities, and recommend home remedies to deal with health issues – the kind of ‘old wives’ tales’ type of remedies.
We are never quite sure if the women actually attempted any spells or believed in them, given the poetical, elliptical language that Ravn employs, and having things told from the point of view of a wax doll that at times seems omniscient, seeing both the future and the past, but at other times seems naive as a child. But of course the gathering of women who support and encourage each other enrages certain husbands and ‘concerned’ citizens, so they are accused of witchcraft and ultimately burnt alive. ‘Where there are many women, there are many witches’ was the simple conclusion at the time.
Although the topic does not feel fresh – I seem to have read quite a few books about 17th century witch hunts both in Britain and elsewhere – the book captivated me with its unique style. The wax child eavesdrops on the women’s candid coversations about marriage and sex, often filled with raucous laughter. It accompanies them in the dungeon, and captures their confused voices trying to make sense of things in the dark. And it captures the self-interest of certain of the women, ready to betray their comrades in the hope of saving their own lives.
Although at times the research hangs a little too heavily, and the book does those trendy little things which annoy me in contemporary literary fiction, like no speech marks, I found the prose hypnotic and beautiful. It’s hard to single out a particular passage, because it’s built upon repetition and build-up, like in a classical concert. And it’s much shorter than The Remembered Soldier!
Definitely one for the shortlist and a possible contender for top prize.
So I’ve read nine of the thirteen longlisted books and of those, I’d like to see: Taiwan Travelogue, The Remembered Soldier, The Wax Child, The Witch, The Deserters on the shortlist. (Although I think The Annual Banquet of the Gravedigger’s Guild was a far better book by Enard and it’s such a scandal that it didn’t make the list that year).
P.S. The shortlist was announced just as I finished writing this blog post and I have to say I am REALLY surprised not to find The Remembered Soldier and The Wax Child on the shortlist – two of the strongest contenders to my mind. Two of them that I’ll have to read now: She Who Remains and On Earth As It Is Beneath. I found both The Director and The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran a bit pedestrian, so it might have been political relevance rather than style that won them their place on the shortlist. So far, until I read the remaining two at least, Taiwan Travelogue is my favourite of the official shortlist. However, the Shadow Panel shortlist might be quite different!
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