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I Who Have Never Known Men

Jacqueline Harpman (author), Ros Schwartz (translator)

Paperback Published on: 04/07/2024; Language: English, French (Original language of a translated text)

£9.99

50 reviews

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Bookseller Reviews

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Haunting and unforgettable.

This book is truly an unforgettable reading experience and I know it's one that will stay with me and play on my mind often. The story is very simple – a g... READ MORE

Kate at Sutton

Thought provoking and heart wrenching

This is an incredibly thought provoking and moving novel with a fairly simple plot. Forty women are being kept inside an underground cage for an unknown re... READ MORE

Stacey at Llandudno

A must read!

A profound and moving piece of dystopian fiction. Its somewhat bleak and minimalist plot is touching and extremely thought provoking. It will certainly sta... READ MORE

Colin Barker

A Great Haunting Read

A woman is kept in a cage underground. There are thirty nine others with her, all female. They are guarded by men who never speak. Their crimes, if there a... READ MORE

Jack Wightman

Awe-inspiring prism

What an incredible journey of a book. It is a meditation on what it is to be alive. Beautiful, terrible, and affecting. I finished with tears in my eyes a... READ MORE

The Doctor

A Profound Novel

This book is about a women who is kept in a cage with 39 other women under mysterious circumstances. We never get to know why they are there or even where ... READ MORE

Naomi

Still thinking about this, months later

A bleak yet thought-provoking look at the human existence - what it really means to be human, and what it means to exist. Do you really exist if you are no... READ MORE

Alice at Waterstones Deansgate

A classic you must read

Haunting and thought-provoking, it's just not like any book I've read before. I kept waiting for things to turn, but to the very end, it remained solem... READ MORE

Amy from Sauchiehall Street

Astounding!!

This book tore me into a thousand pieces, I don’t think I’ll ever stop talking about it. Our main character tells her story in the most thought provoking w... READ MORE

Isabelle Roberts

Fascinating thought experiment

What happens to a human being when raised in isolation and thus stripped of all societal norms? What remains? For such a short book, Harpman juggles wi... READ MORE

Veronique

This book left me questioning everything - I cannot stop thinking about it.

This book explores what it means to be human. not a human in the digital age, not a human with the world around them, but simply human. The short dystopian... READ MORE

Grace M from Newcastle

Do yourself a favour and make this your next read!

What a phenomenal book! A short novella that I'm astounded has not reached a far wider audience - It's an exceptional piece of speculative dystopian fictio... READ MORE

Laionie Sarson

Astounding

I still think about this story a year after reading it. This is quite a stark and lonely book, if that makes sense, but the world building puts you right t... READ MORE

Herb Magee

Hauntingly Powerful!

I who have never known men is an astounding piece of speculative and dystopian fiction with discussions on womanhood, love and death, all with amazing char... READ MORE

Léa at Brighton

A dystopian must-read

The stunning cover of this has been calling to me for some time, and the premise sounded so interesting - a group of women are trapped in a cage in an unde... READ MORE

Beth at Chesterfield

A true classic

Immediately throwing you into the story through the perspective of a young woman, it encourages you to question every detail mentioned. It is so wonderfull... READ MORE

Rachel at Swansea

Speculative and elegiac

Thank you to the Publisher for a reading copy of this novel. I was blown away by this speculative novel and devoured it in a few hours after desperately... READ MORE

Chloë at Cheltenham Waterstones

Haunting and thought-provoking

The writing of I Who Have Never Known Men is sparse and our female narrator remains anonymous. I felt the writing style completely suited the voice of the ... READ MORE

Emma Smith at Bedford

Increasingly More Terrifying with Real-World Implications

Wow, what a story and a concept. A very scary idea that made me think of the Handmaid’s Tale, and as much as I’d love to say it’s a completely fictional dy... READ MORE

Olivia at Ipswich (@benevbooks)

Very unusual tale.

I'm not sure what to say about this book,it is something I have never read before.Don't let the title put you off,it's not a romance. 40 women are guarded... READ MORE

ENEFCEE 1956

An Intriguing Dystopian Read

I cannot explain how much this book gripped me. Usually with stories of unexplained circumstances I'm left with a feeling of being cheated. However "I Who ... READ MORE

Rebecca at East Kilbride

Haunting

Wow, what a story and a concept. A very scary idea that made me think of the Handmaid’s Tale, and as much as I’d love to say it’s a completely fictional dy... READ MORE

Olivia at Ipswich (@benevbooks)

A beautifully haunting dystopia

One of the most thought-provoking, and beautifully haunting novels I have ever read. It deserves all the praise it receives and more.

Dan at Waterstones Cambridge

A beautifully written story of hope and hopelessness

The story starts with the protagonist recounting her life for the reader, starting with the first thing she remembers, being trapped in a cage with 39 othe... READ MORE

Alicia at Llandudno

“What does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?”

I don’t think I have ever felt so much when reading a book. For being so short, I have experienced so much. Our un-named protagonist is naive and innocent ... READ MORE

Kirsten

A masterpiece!

A rediscovered Belgian modern classic that needs to be spoken of in the same breath as novels like Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and McCarthy’s The Road. Ha... READ MORE

Emma at Waterstones Fareham Whiteley

Synopsis

SISTERHOOD. SECRETS. SURVIVAL.

Discover the haunting, heart-breaking post-apocalyptic TikTok sensation.

Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus?

Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. But, as the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone an 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. The woman who will never know men.

Discover the reader obsession of 2025

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, BOOKER PRIZE-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE WATER CURE

**Orlanda, the next sensation from Jacquline Harpman, is available now**

Publisher information

Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781784879037
Number of pages: 208
Dimensions: 198 x 130 x 13 mm
Weight: 151g
Languages: English, French (Original language of a translated text)

Customer Reviews

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Stays with you after you have finished reading

I had never heard of this book until it was recommended to me. Sadly I will never be able to read it in the original French. It is not an action packed ... READ MORE

Kirsten Stuart

Brilliant Read!

Thank you to Penguin Huddle for this recommendation and sending me a copy! This is a brilliant read! Can you imagine yourself in this scenario? What wou... READ MORE

Fiona Sharp

Stunning

Perfectly formed - Simon Savidge recommended this on YouTube I think, and it is one of the best I’ve read in a long while.

Muddy Paws

A haunting and quietly powerful novel

I immersed myself in this remarkable book, captivating readers from the beginning. While the description may imply a brutally sadistic tale, that is untrue... READ MORE

Gail

A rare and remarkable treat!

An ageing, solitary woman, with no one to tell her story to, commits her life experiences to paper, in case someone should ever read it and keep her alive ... READ MORE

Andrew Hammond

Brilliant!

Overall, an extraordinary exploration of the patriarchy through a dystopian lens - I highly recommend it!

Lily Robinson

Bleak and moving

To call 'I Who Have Never Known Men' bleak would be an understatement. This is the most haunting and thought-provoking novel I have read this year. 'I... READ MORE

@what.zana.does

Tragic, poignant and deeply feminist

A truly heart wrenching book about female solidarity, sexuality and a dystopian future. In which imprisoned women have no memory of their past selves, or a... READ MORE

Emily Rowan

Fantastic

Absolutely brilliant post-apocalyptic story which felt reminiscent of The Road by Cormac McCarthy in terms of writing style/tone but very different in term... READ MORE

Wiowa

Forever on my mind

This book was so thought provoking that months later, I still find myself drawn to it.

Danielle Walsh

Tedious

Undoubtedly the worst book I have ever read.

Sian

What an incredibly depressing book.

Read something more joyful.

C J Collins

Brilliant

This book has stayed with me ever sine I read it. It's an amazing story about sisterhood and persistence. Amazing

Sarah Barry

A hauntingly beautiful and thought-provoking read.

Its unique premise creates a captivating atmosphere, making you contemplate the very essence of humanity; our resilience and our purpose. Its themes stay w... READ MORE

Rebekah L

Tedious

As someone who typically enjoys emotional and reflective books, I had high hopes based on the below reviews. There is very little in the way of the plo... READ MORE

Abdurrahman Sufi

Impactful

In an underground bunker, forty women live imprisoned in a cage watched over by guards. They have no memory of how they got there or why, and limited recol... READ MORE

Ella - The Story Collector

Intense!

Imagine being taken as a small child and locked away underground with 39 grown women. You’re fed, clothed, and watched constantly… but you are never loved ... READ MORE

Jaypreadsalot

Verified Purchase

Wonder and Despair in a World Without Answers

This is one of those books I had to sit with for a while after finishing it. I had heard so much about it, yet I never could have imagined the direction th... READ MORE

Veronika B.

Brilliantly Unnerving!

A brilliant dystopian, realism fiction, that explores the human experiences of isolation, communication and the importance of bravery. I started reading th... READ MORE

Gurjeevan Sohal

A truly haunting yet hopeful read

I, Who Have Never Known Men is such a haunting story of the loss of the experience of life, the patriarchal meaning of being a woman and grief. 39 women ar... READ MORE

Saffron Llewellyn

undefined feelings

honest rating 3.6 i have very mixed feelings about this book, i feel like a coin with two sides of “i liked it” and “i didn’t like it” it definitely ... READ MORE

Anastasiia Melnychuk

This reviewer received a free of charge product for review.

nice book

This was a lovely and interesting book. It’s less so about the plot but more to make you question what freedom really means, and what relationships and ide... READ MORE

Ella

Imposible to shake

Harpman's cool, flat prose somehow holds enormous questions about identity, longing, and what it means to be human.

Natalia Chlebowska

should be curriculum reading in schools

This book was instantly captivating it was bleak and optimistic. It has a strange air of hope and intrigue needled all the way through it. It is perfectly ... READ MORE

Dayne Ratcliffe