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I Who Have Never Known Men

Ursula K. LeGuin meets The Road in a post-apocalyptic modern classic of female friendship and intimacy.

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.

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Published May 10, 2022

208 pages

Average rating: 7.6

881 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

jess.withbooks
Jun 05, 2025
8/10 stars
“My memory begins with anger.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What does it mean to be human in a world where you’ve been deprived of what connects us most to humanity? In “I Who Have Never Known Men”, an unnamed narrator walks alongside this question as she emerges from the underground prison in which she has spent her entire life.

I was largely inspired by social media to read this book, and I’m glad that I did—it inspired many thoughts and questions that I’m still grappling with. I did enjoy the earlier chapters (which reminded me on “Piranesi”) more than the latter part of the narrative, but overall this will be a book I won’t soon forget.
sweetlemoneade
May 18, 2025
9/10 stars
Amazing. Everyone should read this book, it is so profound and incredible. You’ll feel every emotion reading this book. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful.
Lizzerwhale
Jun 17, 2025
5/10 stars
5.0-6.0
Aluzrod
Jun 07, 2025
10/10 stars
Wow
Kagejumper
May 29, 2025
7/10 stars
We'll with and interesting concept, but wow is it dated in so many ways. Cannot believe this is being hyped by the younger generation. Despite being written in the 1990's, this is classic second wave feminism ( as you might expect from an author who lived through WWII). Intense classist elitism, heteronormative (despite various references to lesbian sex, it is framed as making do, rather than joyous or primary), and surprisingly sexist. Gender, age, education, and motherhood status are the only descriptions of these women. The cultures of their origin is homogenous, but nondescript. The civilization they form is overlooked and dismissed. There is no suggestion that some women might be perfectly happy to live in a world without men. There is almost no music, no art, minimal story telling. How do 40 humans with all their essential needs met live for decades without getting more creative? I cannot know what it was like to live thru life in concentration camps, losing family to them, and fleeing one's home to escape that fate, as this author experienced. Those experiences are alive in this book. Questions of difference, isolation, love and loneliness, identity, and sexuality are touched on in fascinating ways. Sadly, the analysis feels flat, without layers or intersectionality.

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