I Who Have Never Known Men

One of the reviews reads "I am unwell" and that succinctly encases the feeling I got while reading the book and yet I cannot recommend it enough. Set in a dystopian world, the narrator, a nameless person who, ever since the first memory of her existence, has been living in a jail with 39 more women. No one knows what brought these women to their fate. They have been caged for many years so much so that their sense of time and space has exhausted. The same is conveyed to the reader too. We don’t know what fate has befallen them. We see the world through the narrator who is herself struggling to make sense of the world around her. There’s a routine of the jail where they are fed to sustain, a bulb that never goes out and an open toilet in the middle of the space where the inmates are expected to do their business in front of everyone including the guards that are always on vigil. In this monotony, the narrator, with the help of the women around, learns to count her heart beats and develops a vague sense of time, her own little clock. She closely observes her surroundings, listens to the other women who talk about their lives which existed in some distant memory, a pre-jail life the memories of which are now vague and inconspicuous. Our narrator is different from these women for she is bereft of memory, of everything that constitutes a human experience and is a keen learner since all her conceivable memories are of the jail. Then, on one strange day, they find the guards to have deserted the place and in one stroke of luck, the inmates even find the jail left unlocked. They immediately run out and discover themselves to have been kept in this underground bunker. The narrator is extremely energetic and does not wish to waste a moment to explore this unseen world. Then begins a long arduous journey for all of these women before which they gather enough provisions and the essentials from the abandoned bunker. The world they have now set foot in does not share even the remotest resemblance of the world they last inhabited i.e. before their imprisonment. They often doubt if it was a different planet. They keep walking and the group loses its members one by one to death and to disease. The nameless narrator who is referred to as “Child” by the other women still has her inquisitiveness intact and as she matures, it gets more confirmed as to how she is different from the rest of the women. Often she questions herself if she is a human since the intrinsic experiences that make a human haven’t happened to her. Her existence began from a jail in the bunker. She knows nothing of the world but every moment surprises her. She learns from the inner world of these other women, their past experiences and their imaginations. Anthea, a woman she has formed a strong friendship with, teaches her the basics of reading and other skills. In their journey to no specific destination, these women come across several more bunkers where the inmates were not as fortunate and were lying dead in them. Mostly in batches of 40. Death runs like an intrinsic character. The world outside seems to be no more different than that inside the jail. Years go by. Time is still a concept. The narrator still bides by her own heart clock and there comes a day, when she is the last to survive in the group. She keeps walking, collecting food items from the bunkers that are somehow still operational but eerily abandoned. Through her own sense of time, the narrator even deduces her current age. She is fortyish now. She discovers a bunker, a rather luxurious one, with amenities and books. The narrator also comes across a mirror for the first time in her life and this is when she distinctly takes a look at her. She reads the books, does not understand much but she continues to, learns to write and has developed a painful disease which she believes will kill her. As she awaits her death and someone to discover this bunker, she writes her story. I have not read anything like this before. It wields an inexplicable power. The way the author has sketched this world is distressing and stupefying in the same measure.

Have you ever experienced magic in literature??? 'I Who Have Never Known Men' feels like pure magic captured in words. It's a sheer masterpiece, though written decades ago, carries a timeless message that reflects the deepest aspects of human life. Every sentence feels like a mirror, making you stop and think about your own existence. The story pulls you into its world through the eyes of a young girl, and you journey alongside her until the very end. When it’s over, it leaves you standing in a vast, open space , "both literally and metaphorically" urging you to make sense of it with your imagination. This is a tale about existentialism, despair, resilience, dignity, and the thin line between life and death. It’s about what it means to be human when all the structures we rely on society, relationships, even hope are stripped away. The girl’s isolation and quiet strength resonate deeply, revealing truths about endurance and the human spirit. It’s the kind of book that shakes your thoughts, leaving you with a fresh way of looking at life. This isn’t just an incredible story it’s an experience that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page. The story is narrated by a young girl who remains unnamed. She lives alongside 39 other women, all of whom are middle-aged or elderly, confined and patrolled by guards, ensuring none of the women escape their grim captivity. Unlike the others, who once led normal lives above ground, the young girl has never experienced the outside world. For her, the bunker is the entirety of existence, her only reality. The older women sometimes talk about their past lives, sharing memories of freedom, sunlight, and the world outside the cold walls of the bunker. But to the young girl, these stories feel like distant, unreal tales more like fairy tales than reality. Her whole understanding of life comes from the bunker, a place of darkness, quiet murmurs, and constant watchfulness. One day, a deafening siren blares through the bunker, piercing the air just as the cage door is left ajar to allow the delivery of raw food supplies. The sound sends shockwaves across the faces of the guards, who panic and bolt toward the exit, disappearing as though they’ve vanished into thin air. The young girl and the 39 other women stand frozen, unable to process what’s happening. Slowly, they step out of the cage, only to realize that what seemed like freedom is merely another form of imprisonment. The world outside the cage is harsh and unforgiving, a barren wasteland . Encounters with countless dead bodies on the way as they move forward desperate and uncertain, they find themselves caught in a relentless struggle for survival, playing a grim game of hide and seek with life and death. One by one, their hope dwindles, and their journey ends in the same despair that began it, until they cease to exist entirely.

I finished this book in two days. I found it hard to put down - it's so well written. I am not big on science fiction but this one caught me by surprise. It didn't answer much or anything at all really but I couldn't wait to finish

I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting tale set in a deserted plain. The story of thirty-nine women and a young girl takes the reader to an unfamiliar, fictional, dystopian world—one filled with feelings of wonder and loneliness. From the moment of her first memory, the young girl—our narrator—has lived in a jail cell with thirty-nine other women. They have been caged for so many years that their sense of time and space has eroded. The reader experiences the world through the narrator, who is herself struggling to make sense of her surroundings. In the haunting monotony of jail life—confined and patrolled by guards ensuring none of the women escape their grim captivity—the young, receptive, and keen learner, with the help of the other women, learns to count her heartbeats and develop a vague sense of time. The inquisitiveness of the young narrator ultimately helps the thirty-nine women flee the underground bunker. They step onto a vast, open, deserted plain where nothing resembles the world they last inhabited. As they journey toward no specific destination, the group loses members one by one—to death and to disease. They come across several more bunkers, where the inmates were not as fortunate and were found dead, mostly in batches of forty. Years pass. One day, our young, unnamed narrator becomes the last survivor of the group. She keeps walking, collecting food from bunkers that are somehow still operational yet eerily abandoned. Using her own sense of time, she deduces that she is around forty years old. Then, she discovers a bunker—a rather luxurious one—with amenities and books. She comes across a mirror for the first time in her life and sees her reflection. She reads the books, not understanding much at first, but she persists. She learns to write, all while suffering from a painful disease she believes will kill her. As she awaits her death and the possibility that someone might discover this bunker, she writes her story. This book explores the search for meaning and purpose without the framework of a larger society to guide or influence you. It reflects on life and on how, no matter how much we speculate about how this happened or why, we never truly can know. And yet, we will always try. At the end of the day, it is up to our own interpretation and beliefs to make sense of the world around us. It’s a beautiful tale of friendship, love, and companionship within a community far past the point of trauma. It highlights the solidarity found even among those you may not get along with, bound together by an unbreakable, undeniable connection. The author masterfully manages to sustain a faint sense of hope in the reader despite the bleakness. In fact, hope is the very thread that carries the story forward.

Good

Beginning was quite boring, din understand the feelings but later on it was exciting. Read the start again after reading the whole book and found it wonderfully heartbreaking.

Interesting mix of sci fi with psychology. Yet to read the complete book.

Good book but ending will make you question your life.

Amazing read

A quick dystopian read. The book is shorter than I thought it would be, but no less impressive.

Fabulous book.

I read the book in 2 days, I needed to know how it ends... The book makes you question your existence and how we are shaped by what we have lived

The book arrived on time and perfect condition. This book although short packs a punch. It’s a bleak dystopian story, that has stayed with me.