How the novel ‘I Who Have Never Known Men’ became a runaway success

There’s a trade paperback currently on the bestseller list you may have noticed. Or maybe you haven’t.

This slim novel is a 30-year-old work of speculative fiction by a now-deceased Belgian author that’s been translated into English from the original French. The current edition came out in 2022.

And it’s a publishing juggernaut.

The late Jacqueline Harpman’s “I Who Have Never Known Men,” translated by Ros Schwartz, tells a dystopian story of 40 women held captive in an underground bunker. The novel is narrated by the youngest prisoner, who has questions that neither the guards nor her fellow inmates will answer, including about the worrying, unknown world looming outside.

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While its austere nar