“I Who Have Never Known Men”, Jacqueline Harpman
Moi qui n’ai pas connu les hommes • Originally published in French in 1995
Deep underground, 39 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 40th 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.
“There’s no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I haven’t heard its music, I haven’t seen its painting, I haven’t read its books... I know only the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.”
Originally published in French, because of course the existential dread had to be chic. In the UK, this book is titled Mistress of Silence—not as punchy, imo.
This was one of the most quietly haunting books I’ve ever read. Dystopia whispering into a voice and echoing directly into my soul. Exactly what you’d expect from a story that follows a young man (the only one in a prison bunker full of older women) who has never known the outside world, or even really people. There’s no grand worldbuilding, no rebel uprising, no dramatic relationship entanglements. Just vibes. Existential ones. With occasional woman-on-woman drama and mild panic.
The narrator exudes quiet resilience. She remains curious in the face of total isolation, with refusal to pretend she understands a world that never tried to explain itself to her. This sparse dystopian fiction will leave you hollow, as if you’d been handed a cosmic riddle with no answer key.
Content Warnings
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of content and trigger warnings.
death • confinement • suicide • grief • terminal illness
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