--- product_id: 585398115 title: "I Who Have Never Known Men" price: "€ 30.70" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/585398115-i-who-have-never-known-men store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # I Who Have Never Known Men **Price:** € 30.70 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** I Who Have Never Known Men - **How much does it cost?** € 30.70 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/585398115-i-who-have-never-known-men) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description ***THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLER*** "Each revelation is a small miracle."— The New York Times Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. 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. 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. Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. 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. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an essential addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature. Review: My review - Reflection on I Who Have Never Known Men. Reading I Who Have Never Known Men was both an intellectual and emotional experience that stayed with me long after I closed the book. On a purely literary level, the novel is brilliant. It is written in a way that keeps the reader engaged without relying on action, spectacle, or explanation. I kept reading because I expected the story to arrive at a point—some revelation, cause, or meaning that would justify the suffering depicted. Instead, the book refuses that comfort. There is no final answer, and in that refusal lies its power. The novel demonstrates that not everything must have a point in order to exist, and that meaninglessness itself can be an honest portrayal of reality. What disturbed me most was the way the story confronts human arrogance. We often believe we understand the world, that we are its rulers, that knowledge is something we own. The book quietly dismantles this illusion. Everything the women in the bunker know has been given to them in fragments, and once knowledge is restricted, their humanity begins to erode. Without curiosity, without the ability to ask “why,” humans are reduced to mere biological existence—eating, sleeping, reproducing, and waiting for death. In contrast, the narrator’s hunger for understanding is what keeps her alive in a deeper sense. Her frustration with the older women’s dismissive response—“What use is it for you to know?”—felt profoundly justified. Knowing is not a luxury; knowing is living. One of the most striking elements of the novel is that the protagonist has no name. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I formed a deep emotional bond with her. I felt compassion for her isolation and suffering and an overwhelming desire to comfort her, even though she exists only as an idea on the page. Her namelessness did not erase her humanity—it sharpened it. Through her thoughts, observations, and memories, she becomes fully real. In reading her story, I felt that I was offering her something she had been denied: recognition. By witnessing her life, I allowed it to have meaning. The absence of answers is what made the novel so unsettling. I wanted to know why the women were imprisoned, who was responsible, and whether their suffering was caused by humans or some greater catastrophe. The story offers no such explanations. This lack of closure forces the reader to confront the possibility that suffering does not always come with reasons. Freedom, when it finally arrives, does not resolve this discomfort. The world outside the bunker offers no more certainty than the world within it—only different forms of waiting. This raised difficult questions: Was escape truly freedom, or merely a postponement of death? Were those who died earlier spared the prolonged agony of unanswered questions? Yet alongside disturbance, the book left me feeling deeply grateful. Grateful for curiosity, for knowledge, for touch, for freedom, and for hope. Death is inevitable for all of us, but what exists between birth and death is not insignificant. The novel made me acutely aware of the richness of that in-between space. In recognizing the deprivation of the nameless girl, I also came to recognize my own life more fully. I see myself. I see how much I know, how much I can feel, and how much I am allowed to wonder. And that, perhaps, is the quiet gift the book leaves behind. Review: Thought provoking - This book is dystopic and told from the pov of a person who was imprisoned as a child who finds freedom in a desolate world. It is heavy and thought provoking. What makes us human, how our life is often defined by what we have, or our experiences. This is a short but captivating read. 4.5 stars ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #760 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #16 in Dystopian Fiction (Books) #46 in Friendship Fiction (Books) #69 in Literary Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.0 out of 5 stars 21,473 Reviews | ## Images ![I Who Have Never Known Men - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61FtrzptgJL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ My review *by S***S on February 6, 2026* Reflection on I Who Have Never Known Men. Reading I Who Have Never Known Men was both an intellectual and emotional experience that stayed with me long after I closed the book. On a purely literary level, the novel is brilliant. It is written in a way that keeps the reader engaged without relying on action, spectacle, or explanation. I kept reading because I expected the story to arrive at a point—some revelation, cause, or meaning that would justify the suffering depicted. Instead, the book refuses that comfort. There is no final answer, and in that refusal lies its power. The novel demonstrates that not everything must have a point in order to exist, and that meaninglessness itself can be an honest portrayal of reality. What disturbed me most was the way the story confronts human arrogance. We often believe we understand the world, that we are its rulers, that knowledge is something we own. The book quietly dismantles this illusion. Everything the women in the bunker know has been given to them in fragments, and once knowledge is restricted, their humanity begins to erode. Without curiosity, without the ability to ask “why,” humans are reduced to mere biological existence—eating, sleeping, reproducing, and waiting for death. In contrast, the narrator’s hunger for understanding is what keeps her alive in a deeper sense. Her frustration with the older women’s dismissive response—“What use is it for you to know?”—felt profoundly justified. Knowing is not a luxury; knowing is living. One of the most striking elements of the novel is that the protagonist has no name. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I formed a deep emotional bond with her. I felt compassion for her isolation and suffering and an overwhelming desire to comfort her, even though she exists only as an idea on the page. Her namelessness did not erase her humanity—it sharpened it. Through her thoughts, observations, and memories, she becomes fully real. In reading her story, I felt that I was offering her something she had been denied: recognition. By witnessing her life, I allowed it to have meaning. The absence of answers is what made the novel so unsettling. I wanted to know why the women were imprisoned, who was responsible, and whether their suffering was caused by humans or some greater catastrophe. The story offers no such explanations. This lack of closure forces the reader to confront the possibility that suffering does not always come with reasons. Freedom, when it finally arrives, does not resolve this discomfort. The world outside the bunker offers no more certainty than the world within it—only different forms of waiting. This raised difficult questions: Was escape truly freedom, or merely a postponement of death? Were those who died earlier spared the prolonged agony of unanswered questions? Yet alongside disturbance, the book left me feeling deeply grateful. Grateful for curiosity, for knowledge, for touch, for freedom, and for hope. Death is inevitable for all of us, but what exists between birth and death is not insignificant. The novel made me acutely aware of the richness of that in-between space. In recognizing the deprivation of the nameless girl, I also came to recognize my own life more fully. I see myself. I see how much I know, how much I can feel, and how much I am allowed to wonder. And that, perhaps, is the quiet gift the book leaves behind. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Thought provoking *by K***R on July 15, 2026* This book is dystopic and told from the pov of a person who was imprisoned as a child who finds freedom in a desolate world. It is heavy and thought provoking. What makes us human, how our life is often defined by what we have, or our experiences. This is a short but captivating read. 4.5 stars ### ⭐⭐⭐ Interesting but I need more of a payoff at the end *by G***M on May 25, 2026* I Who Have Never Known Men was a really intriguing read. It’s quiet, bleak, and very stripped down, focusing on survival, isolation, identity, dignity, and what it means to keep going when there are no real answers. I can see why this book stays with so many readers. The concept is very strong, and the afterword gave the story even more weight, especially with the author’s background and the echoes of confinement, fear, and survival. That said, it did start to drag for me toward the end. There was a lot of , searching, and findings, and I personally wanted a little more payoff after being so curious the whole time. Overall, I’m glad I read it, and I respect what it was doing, but it didn’t fully land for me. I’d recommend it to readers who like quiet, bleak dystopian stories with survival, isolation, and don’t mind endings that leave a lot unanswered. ## Frequently Bought Together - I Who Have Never Known Men - Tender Is the Flesh - The Nightingale: A Novel --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/585398115-i-who-have-never-known-men](https://www.desertcart.be/products/585398115-i-who-have-never-known-men) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-08-27*