Jacqueline Harpman's 1995 novel surges

Jacqueline Harpman’s 1995 novel *I Who Have Never Known Men* has become a backlist hit three decades after publication, with Le Figaro reporting renewed demand among Gen Z readers in the United States and Britain on May 19. The French newspaper said the book ranked No. 2 on Literary Hub’s U.S. bestseller list on April 5 and has sold 1,044,410 copies worldwide. (lefigaro.fr) Transit Books, the Berkeley, California publisher behind the current U.S. edition, says the novel is back in print for the first time since 1997 and is now being positioned as a modern feminist speculative classic. (iwhohaveneverknownmen.com) The publisher lists the paperback at $16.95 and describes the book as a story of 39 women imprisoned underground and a 40th, younger prisoner who becomes central to their escape. ### Why is a 1995 novel suddenly everywhere again? Le Figaro said BookTok creators helped drive the revival, naming singer Dua Lipa as one of the people who boosted attention to the novel online. (lefigaro.fr) The paper described the book’s current readership as heavily Gen Z and said the story’s themes of confinement, surveillance and female survival have resonated with younger readers in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Forward reported in August 2025 that TikTok users had already turned the novel into a rare viral success for an older work in translation. (transitbooks.org) That article said the book sold 100,000 copies in the United States in 2024, before the wider 2026 sales figures cited by Le Figaro. ### What is the book about? Transit Books says the novel opens with 39 women living in a cage underground under guard, with no clear memory of how they got there. A younger, 40th prisoner, isolated from the others, eventually becomes “the key” to escape and survival in the world above ground, according to the publisher’s description. (lefigaro.fr) Le Figaro summarized the premise as 40 women, including a 15-year-old girl, confined under male guards who do not speak to them and then abruptly vanish. The women emerge into what the paper described as a deserted plain, with no clear explanation of what happened to the world. (forward.com) ### Who was Jacqueline Harpman? Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929 and fled with her family to Casablanca during World War II, according to Transit Books. The publisher says her work was shaped by both exile and her later career as a psychoanalyst. (transitbooks.org) The Forward reported that Harpman’s father was Jewish and that the family left Belgium in May 1940, the month of the Nazi invasion, before returning after the war. Harpman later became an established Belgian writer as well as a practicing psychoanalyst, the paper said. (lefigaro.fr) ### Was this revival already underway before 2026? Le Figaro said the current revival began in 2019, when Vintage Publishing republished the novel in Britain after its earlier English-language run had drawn limited notice in 1997. (transitbooks.org) Transit Books separately says the U.S. edition brought the book back into print after a long gap. The Forward said the novel was re-released in 2022, linking that return in part to renewed reader appetite for dystopian fiction. Taken together, those accounts suggest the breakout moment in 2026 followed several years of republication and online discovery rather than a single event. (forward.com) ### What happens next for the book? Transit Books has set a September 9 release for a U.S.-only collector’s edition hardcover with a new introduction by Carmen Maria Machado. (lefigaro.fr) The publisher says preorders will ship in mid-August, ahead of publication. Le Figaro also reported that a film adaptation is in development and quoted Marianne Puttemans, one of Harpman’s daughters, as saying, “I’ve just signed a contract.” The paper said the project is to be co-produced with Disney Studios. (lefigaro.fr) (iwhohaveneverknownmen.com) (forward.com)