Jacqueline Harpman 2 Books Collection Set - I Who Have Never Known Men & Orlanda - Fiction - Paperback

Titles in This Set
I Who Have Never Known Men
Orlanda

Details
Condition: Brand New
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage

Overview
The Jacqueline Harpman 2 Books Collection Set brings together two acclaimed works of literary fiction from the celebrated Belgian novelist and psychoanalyst: I Who Have Never Known Men and Orlanda. The first imagines thirty-nine women confined in an underground cage, watched over by silent guards, narrated by the fortieth prisoner with no memory of freedom. The second follows Aline, a reserved literature professor whose repressed alter ego breaks free and slips into the body of a young man. Together, these paperbacks explore memory, identity, desire, and the boundaries society draws around women, rewarding readers of literary fiction.

About the Books
I Who Have Never Known Men opens in total darkness beneath the earth, where thirty-nine women live out their days in a guarded cage, stripped of names, calendars, and any memory of the world above. The youngest, the fortieth captive, has no recollection of life before the cage and must piece together language, longing, and companionship from fragments the older women can barely explain. When circumstances finally open a way out, the group must decide whether survival aboveground is even possible in a landscape offering only silence and the unknown. Orlanda takes a more intimate route into confinement and selfhood. Aline Berger, a disciplined literature professor rereading Virginia Woolf's Orlando in a Paris cafe, feels part of her consciousness split away and lodge itself in the body of a young rock journalist, Lucien Lefrene. This new presence names itself Orlanda and begins living a bold, unguarded life Aline would never permit herself. As Orlanda shadows her creator through Paris and Belgium, the novel probes how repression, desire, and gender expectation shape the self we present to the world. Read together, the two novels reveal Harpman's fascination with women pushed to the edges of their own lives, told in lucid, psychologically precise prose.

Key Benefits

• Two acclaimed novels by Jacqueline Harpman in one paperback set
• Includes the viral dystopian classic I Who Have Never Known Men
• Pairs it with Orlanda, winner of the Prix Medicis
• Brand new condition, ready to gift or shelve
• Great for fans of feminist dystopian and psychological fiction
• A thoughtful gift for book clubs and literary fiction fans

Book-by-Book Guide
I Who Have Never Known Men — Thirty-nine women live in an underground cage, and the fortieth prisoner, who has no memory of the world above, becomes key to their fragile bid for survival.
Orlanda — A reserved literature professor's repressed alter ego breaks free after thirty-five years and slips into the body of a young man, upending both their lives.

About the Author
Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929. Her Jewish family fled to Casablanca when the Nazis invaded and returned home only after the war. She studied French literature and began training as a doctor, a path cut short by tuberculosis; she turned to writing in 1954 and qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1980. Harpman went on to write more than fifteen novels over her career, winning numerous literary prizes, including the Prix Medicis for Orlanda. I Who Have Never Known Men later became a word-of-mouth sensation with readers discovering her work decades after its first publication.

Why You'll Love This Collection
This collection pairs two of Harpman's most gripping novels in one set, perfect for readers who love layered, psychologically rich fiction. Whether you're building a literary gift for a birthday, a book club pick, or your own stack for a cozy weekend of reading, these paperbacks deliver haunting, thought-provoking stories that stay with you long after the final page.

Please Note: This is the UK edition with the ISBN as listed; the cover may vary slightly from the image shown.