I Who Have Never Known Men
Paperback Published on: 02/05/2019; Language: English, French (Original language of a translated text)
Price: £9.99
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
“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
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
Synopsis
Discover the haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic tale of female friendship and intimacy set in a deserted world.
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 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. The woman who will never know men.
Publisher information
- Publisher: Vintage Publishing
- ISBN: 9781529111798
- Number of pages: 208
- Dimensions: 197 x 129 x 13 mm
- Weight: 160g
- Languages: English, French (Original language of a translated text)
Customer Reviews
View allStays 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
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
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.
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
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
Brilliant!
Overall, an extraordinary exploration of the patriarchy through a dystopian lens - I highly recommend it!
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
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
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
Forever on my mind
This book was so thought provoking that months later, I still find myself drawn to it.
Tedious
Undoubtedly the worst book I have ever read.
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
What an incredibly depressing book.
Read something more joyful.
Brilliant
This book has stayed with me ever sine I read it. It's an amazing story about sisterhood and persistence. Amazing
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Imposible to shake
Harpman's cool, flat prose somehow holds enormous questions about identity, longing, and what it means to be human.
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
Verified Purchase
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