Wonder and Despair in a World Without Answers
This is one of those books I had to sit with for a while after finishing it. I had heard so much about it, yet I never could have imagined the direction the story would take. Not only the novel itself, but especially the foreword and the afterword are deeply worth reading¿they linger in your mind and invite reflection long after the last page.I never thought that such a thin, quiet book could carry a sadness that even the most popular tearjerkers could never hope to capture. *I Who Have Never Known Men* exists in a space of its own, untethered from genre, time, or familiar reality. From the beginning, it immerses the reader in a world as alien to us as it is to the unnamed narrator, creating an atmosphere thick with loneliness and awe.The story opens in an underground bunker, where thirty-nine women and one girl are held captive in a cage. The women remember lives before their imprisonment; the girl remembers nothing else. Guarded and sustained by silent men who offer no answers, their existence feels endless and inescapable ¿ until a fragile opportunity for freedom emerges.What follows is not a traditional dystopian adventure, but a quiet, meditative exploration of isolation, hope, and the human need for meaning. The novel moves steadily between brief sparks of optimism and long stretches of despair. I often found myself wondering whether it was meant to be read as a metaphor: the search for purpose in a world that refuses to explain itself.The ambiguity is deliberate, and at times devastating. I was consumed by curiosity about the women's circumstances, only to realize that this hunger for answers mirrors the very themes of the book. The mystery is never resolved, leaving both narrator and reader suspended in unanswered questions.The afterword adds important context: first published in 1997 and largely overlooked, the novel resurfaced decades later as readers turned back to dystopian fiction in search of understanding. While it offers no explicit political message, its relevance is unmistakable. It asks uncomfortable questions about survival, solitude, and what remains when everything familiar is gone.Quiet, bleak, and deeply affecting, *I Who Have Never Known Men* is a novel that embraces its ambiguity rather than fearing it. It is as beautiful as it is devastating ¿ and it deserves far more attention than it has received. So, do yourself a favour and read it.