I Who Have Never Known Men

"I Who Have Never Known Men" was first published in 1995 to relatively little fanfare in the English-speaking world, and was republished in English in 2022. Why do you think the book has found resurging popularity? What makes it resonate with modern readers?

This is a unique book, combining sci fi, dystopianism, first person narrative, and coming of age. Have you ever read a book like "I Who Have Never Known Men"? Are there any works that it reminds you of? How would you describe it in a few sentences to someone thinking about reading it?

"I Who Have Never Known Men" leaves many questions unanswered. What do you think happened that led to the women's imprisonment? What are your theories about where they are and why?

Do you wish that Harpman would have explained more of what happened, or do you think the uncertainty adds to the novel?

The narrator has no name. Why do you think the other women continue to call her "the child" rather than giving her a name?  Why does she not claim a name for herself?  Would her having a name change how we as readers relate to her?

How do the narrator's unique circumstances - her younger age and her inability to remember anything before the bunker - differentiate her from the other women emotionally and psychologically?

The narrator is thirsty for knowledge, exclaiming, "I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it's any use, but for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I will never be able to use it.”  How challenging would it be to both teach and to make sense of concepts like time, language, mathematics, art, music and more in an isolated environment like the bunker or even the sparse outside world they encounter later?  

After escaping, the women stay together, work cooperatively, and make decisions as a group.  Were you surprised that they were able to work together in such close collaboration?  How did this contrast with other stories you have read where there is significant group conflict?  

How do you think you would have reacted if you were in the narrator's shoes? Are there any actions she took that you would have done differently?  For example, would you have continued to explore and travel after the other women all passed?  

The circumstances the women find themselves in are certainly bleak, and yet you could say that the narrator maintains an optimistic tone. Did you ultimately find the book tragic or hopeful?

There are men in the novel -- the guards, the dead prisoners -- but it takes place entirely among women (who seem to manage fine without men after they escape). How would the novel be different if there had been more male characters and interaction?  

The narrator cannot bear to be touched, and she never knows romantic love.  Yet she ultimately realizes that she did indeed love Anthea.  What do you think the book is trying to say about the nature of love and of human relationships?  How does our ability to care for one another make us fully human? 

Would you have been able to provide mercy killings for the sick women the way the narrator does? Why is she able to provide this final mercy when other women, including Anthea, are not? 

Why does the narrator set her story down on paper?  Reflect on the following quotes from the book: “Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else.”  And also, "after all, if I was a human being, my story was as important as that of King Lear, or of Prince Hamlet, that William Shakespeare had taken the trouble to relate in detail."

At the beginning of the novel, as the narrator prefaces her story, she muses: "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."  What does she mean by "I was human after all?"  What do you think the author is trying to say in the novel about the nature of humanity, and about how much of our humanity is intrinsic?