Jacqueline Harpman

A haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic tale of female friendship and intimacy. 'A small miracle' The New York Times 'For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed' 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 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. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, MAN BOOKER PRIZE-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE WATER CURE

I Who Have Never Known Men

Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes

sina (she/her) 

If the only thing that differentiates us from animals is the fact that we hide to defecate, then being human rests on very little, I thought. 

Anastasia Illner

✧༺♥༻✧

Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? 

Chenay Kamara

nhu ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹

I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.

han ˚✧₊⁎❝᷀ົཽ

You’ve never seen a child, you don’t know what it means – their vulnerability, their trust, the love you feel for them, the anxiety, being ready to lay down your life to save them, and it’s unbearable to imagine a child’s pain.

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.

Sometimes, as I returned to the group around the fire, I’d feel a rush of emotion; I was moved by the flickering of the flames in the night, the silhouettes of the women resting, the interplay of words or Denise’s reedy voice carrying the laments of another era across the plain, and I understood what Anthea called beauty, which apparently had been so abundant in their world.”

We had survived the prison, the plain and the loss of all hope, but the women had discovered that survival is no more than putting off the moment of death. 

They’d been custodians of the absurd, carrying out orders whose purpose they were unaware of, themselves having to submit to incomprehensible rules, and perhaps they had no more idea of our identity than we did of theirs. 

It all seemed incredibly strange, sinister and moving. I felt the burden of the inexplicable, of my life, of that world to which I was the sole witness.

It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods and who have never known men.

I Who Have Never Known Men quotes

Join the club