I Who Have Never Known Men

A beautiful philosophical read about a woman, a strange planet, and the duality of people. Thirty-nine women and a girl are being held prisoner in a cage underground. The guards are all male, and never speak to them. The girl is the only one of the prisoners who has no memory of the outside world; none of them know why they are being held prisoner, or why there is one child among thirty-nine adults.

One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee; the prisoners are subsequently able to escape. They find themselves on an immense barren plain, with no other people anywhere, and no clue as to what has happened to the world.

Jacqueline Harpman was a Jewish woman who fled Belgium and went to Casablanca during the Nazi occupation and visuals and trauma of her experience is littered through the book with the descriptions of the guards that watch the women and the trauma that follows their escape. This book brings incredible visuals and gives away none of its secrets. It is a story that will stick in your mind, and much like the main character, will make you desperate for answers that will never come.