She studied French literature and trained to become a doctor but was unable to continue her medical studies after contracting tuberculosis. Born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, she fled to Casablanca with her family during the Second World War. JACQUELINE HARPMAN (1929-2012) was a Belgian author of over fifteen novels. 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.

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. Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. 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.Īs 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.

LeGuin meets The Road in a post-apocalyptic modern classic of female friendship and intimacy.ĭeep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage.

I who have never known men book