I Who Have Never Known Men

***THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLER***

"Each revelation is a small miracle."--The New York Times

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 essential addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

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Published May 10, 2022

188 pages

Average rating: 7.45

1,857 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

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Readers say *I Who Have Never Known Men* is a haunting, philosophical exploration of humanity and isolation through the eyes of a nameless protagonist...

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.
Sammy 👽
Mar 22, 2026
1/10 star
The book starts too slow with nothing going on that made me stick around. It was so hyped up and I tried to get into it but I had to finally move on it was just too boring.
pr0logue
Mar 07, 2026
8/10 stars
it was such an unexpectedly good read for me. i had waited for it for some time (i was somewhere in the 600s originally for the holds list at my library) and i’m happy i did. 173 pages of what i can only compare to being prompted to think—which i haven’t had a book do for me in a while (even though i was simultaneously reading "finger exercises for poets"). it somehow had this really interesting feeling of familiarity with the writing style—something i can only really describe as a vague specificity (this is something a lot of my family and close friends say is a speech pattern of mine lol). it was very descriptive in ways that were clever, without anything outright. there was finality without really providing answers. i really enjoyed the reading experience.
Lit_With_Alex
Mar 05, 2026
8/10 stars
I went into this book lighthearted and joking… and it absolutely wrecked me. This story holds such a quiet heaviness — a loneliness and ache that sits in your chest long after you stop listening.

The narrator’s voice is haunting. Her reflections on connection, fear, captivity, and the realization of her own humanity are deeply moving. It’s the kind of book that forces you into contemplation whether you’re ready or not. It’s unsettling, sad, beautifully written, and absolutely worth reading.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Favorite Quote: “I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
Format: Audiobook
Monika Dančová
Feb 19, 2026
10/10 stars
silné!

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