I Who Have Never Known Men
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4.2 • 107 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.
As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.
Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.
Customer Reviews
The point of the book is for it to be frustrating
The author wants the reader to be frustrated the entire time and just as confused as the characters are. This is a great example of how books can evoke physical feelings in the readers for example the feeling of being “on the edge of your seat.”
Very intriguing
I think I will muse over this for some time to come. I feel the perseverance of humanness highlighted in this work to be very intriguing; the innate expression of ‘human’, existent even in such a vast and questionable world. I found the quiet yet profound nature of the women’s experience to be a very truthful reflection of what I see Womanness to be. The background of the author which was revealed in the Afterward added a major layer of depth to this work that made it even more impactful for me. Thank you!
Frustrated but in love
This is the first time I ever read this book. But I think this is one of those books that you have to keep reading and re-reading over the years. I think it holds a different value at different times in your life. All throughout, I kept waiting. Hoping for answers to questions. That there will be a twist. A change. Something that will dramatically alter the ending. But to reach the end and be left as curious and frustrated as I was when I first started reading it… it’s a different kind of feeling. A different kind of sadness and joy and addiction. I don’t think I’m ready to read it again just yet. Perhaps in a few years when I’m searching for answers, I will come back to this book that gave me none.