Book Review: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman

Book title: I Who Have Never Known Men
Author: Jacqueline Harpman
Genre: Dystopian fiction
First published: January 1, 1995
188 pages
My rating: 5/5

“I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious. I sighed and left.”

In an underground bunker, thirty-nine women and a young girl are imprisoned in a cage, their every move watched over by guards. As the girl cannot remember life before the imprisonment, the women treat her as an outcast. Until one day, a siren goes off, the guards run away, and a stroke of luck gives the women a chance to escape. In the strange and desolate world above, the girl shows herself to be the key to the other’s survival.

I Who Have Never Known Men (original French title Moi qui n’ai pas connu les hommes; translated by Ros Schwartz) is Jacqueline Harpman’s dystopian novel set in a post-apocalyptic world and an instant five-star read for me. Originally published in French in 1995, this book has found a new success in recent years, and its popularity does not surprise me. This was a gripping and thought-provoking novel.

With less than 200 pages, I Who Have Never Known Men is a fast read, but it is introspective rather than an action-packed story. The plot of the novel is simple: the main character and the women she’s imprisoned with have lived years in an underground bunker. The only excitement offered to them is a daily discussion on how to boil their meager rations of meat and vegetables. When they escape their prison, they encounter a strange planet that may not be Earth: a world with nothing but plains and hills and occasional rivers, unchanging seasons, and bunker after bunker with dead prisoners, both women and men.

The nameless main character doesn’t remember anything about the life before, the life the women consider as normal with menial jobs, husbands, and children. This makes her an outcast, but it also gives her an advantage: since she has not experienced any other way of living, she can adapt to the new reality more easily than the women with their vague memories of the life before the imprisonment.

It’s impossible to read this book without noting the author’s background as a Jewish woman who escaped the Nazi occupation of Belgium during the Second World War. The senseless imprisonment and human cruelty remind one of the concentration camps and holocaust. Even when the women escape, they continue to be prisoners in this strange world, forced to utilize the commodities and food offered in the other bunkers.

What is this surreal world where they live? Who imprisoned them and why? What happened to the guards? If you want a novel that answers all the questions it raises, this book will frustrate you. But I found that a good thing. Sometimes you need novels that only give you questions and no answers. I Who Have Never Known Men is a puzzle that refuses to be solved, leaving you with a long-lasting impression. This short but impactful novel deserves five stars, if not more.