Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929. Her family fled to Casablanca when the Nazis invaded, and only returned home after the war. After studying French literature she started training to be a doctor, but could not complete her training due to contracting tuberculosis. She turned to writing in 1954 and her first work was published in 1958. In 1980 she qualified as a psychoanalyst. Harpman wrote over 15 novels and won numerous literary prizes, including the Prix Médicis for Orlanda. I Who Have Never Known Men was her first novel to be translated into English, and was originally published with the title The Mistress of Silence. Harpman died in 2012.

Ros Schwartz has translated numerous works of fiction and non-fiction from French, including Jacqueline Harpman's I Who Have Never Known Men, several Georges Simenon titles for Penguin Classics, a new translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince and, most recently, Mireille Gansel's Translation as Transhumance. The recipient of a number of awards, she was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009 and received the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence in 2017.

Praise for We Were Forbidden

"Another stunning missive from Harpman's repertoire... Renewed interest in Harpman's oeuvre isn't just warranted: In works like this, she reveals herself to be one of the major writers of the 20th century, comparable to Gogol and Kafka but with a style and outlook entirely her own."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Transfixing... The three female protagonists in this sharp-edged triptych push back against the political, educational, and sexual regimes, respectively, that govern their lives... [these stories] accrue power in their depictions of conflicts between obedience and reason, and between submission and desire."--Publishers Weekly

Praise for I Who Have Never Known Men

"Paradoxically, the book's austere mystery--the atrophied and gelid world it depicts--provides a richly allusive consideration of human life."--Deborah Eisenberg, The New York Review of Books

"All the loneliness and oblivion of a deserted world won't stop us from following the narrator as far as she can go. . . Each revelation that directs her steps is a small miracle."--The New York Times

"A consistently gripping experience."--Times Literary Supplement

"Imagination. Jacqueline Harpman certainly doesn't lack any. . . With incredible mastery, she juggles with identities, intertwines desires and fears, fantasies and frustrations."--L'Express

"[I] couldn't put it down. . . It's a deceptively simple but wholly propulsive story that explores the interplay between memory, patriarchy and solidarity."--Laila Lalami, author of The Dream Hotel

"The delirium of I Who Have Never Known Men suggests the work of a feminine Kafka."--Le Nouvel Observateur

Publisher: Transit Books

Pub date: 2026-07-07

Length: 112 pages