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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Readers say *I Who Have Never Known Men* is a haunting, philosophical exploration of humanity, isolation, and the meaning of connection. Reviewers agr...
This existential novel published originally a few decades ago deserves to be on a shelf with Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and perhaps Victor Frankl's Man's (or in this case Woman's) Search for Meaning. Worth a read if you're curious about why life can be good anyway, even if you have nothing to live for.
Really good book, different than what I usually read in sci fi but really glad I did. An introspective look into social constructs, relationships and loneliness. Following the main character who has only known one way of living feels even more isolated compared to those around her as she does not have the shared understanding of experiences. In any other book I would have been annoyed for the lack of explanation for who put this group here and why, this book is not to answer that mystery but use it as a way to tell a unique story.
8.6/10
8.6/10
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