I Who Have Never Known Men

I Who Have Never Known Men is a post-apocalyptic novel by Jacqueline Harpman about thirty-nine women held in an underground cage under constant guard, with no memory of how they arrived there and no clear sense of time. The story follows one younger woman whose perspective becomes central as the group tries to survive confinement and later confronts the unfamiliar world above ground. The novel is widely described as a haunting, psychologically focused work about female friendship, intimacy, survival, and what it means to remain human under extreme isolation. The edition associated with ISBN 9781529111798 is a 2019 Vintage paperback in English. Secondary listings describe it as the same novel originally published in French and later translated into English, and note that this edition contains 188 pages in one source and 208 pages in another, reflecting retailer metadata differences. The book has been promoted as a bleak, memorable speculative novel with strong literary and existential themes, and it has continued to draw attention in later reissues. Its narrative is typically presented as spare and unsettling, with emphasis on mood, character, and the gradual revelation of the women’s situation rather than on action-driven plot mechanics.