Black hardcover book with a ladder and diamond design on the cover. Text in a circular layout around the design reads: 'AFTER ALL, I WAS FORCED TO ACKNOWLEDGE TOO LATE, MUCH TOO LATE, THAT I TOO HAD LOVED, THAT I WAS CAPABLE OF SUFFERING.' The spine reads: 'Jacqueline Harpman.'

I Who Have Never Known Men

Jacqueline Harpman

Collector’s Edition

9.9.25

The runaway bestseller, now available in a collector’s edition hardcover September 9. 

Translated by Ros Schwartz.

With a new introduction by Carmen Maria Machado.

“My memory begins with my anger.”

  • 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. Now available in a special collector’s edition, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

  • The collector’s edition features a textured hardcover case, with silver foil stamping on the front, back, and spine.

  • All preorders will ship in mid-August, ahead of the book’s publication.

    Available in the US only.