I Who Have Never Known Men

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

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.

© Jacqueline Harpman 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

A novel that takes you into philosophically interesting territory… this [is a] intriguingly dark thought experiment told by a compellingly alien voice – dispassionate and unfussy – is strangely fascinating

The Times

A vivid evocation of another world, alive with hope and dignity

A bleak but fascinating postapocalyptic novel… all the loneliness and oblivion of a deserted world won’t stop us from following the narrator as far as she can go

User Reviews

Book 4.8
Narration 4.5
5.0
5.0
lialexia 04/02/2025
4.0
3.0
pollybaker87 18/02/2024
5.0
5.0
minusfigures 17/05/2024
5.0
5.0
I needed this book, it is so beautiful and a profound meditation on life, humanity and solitude.
HollyHoovers 01/11/2024

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