Dystopian Novel ‘I That Have Never Known Men’ Becomes BookTok Sensation

Harpman's I That Have Never Known Men, a dystopian novel about 40 women in a bunker, is a BookTok sensation, selling 600,000 copies and leading to further re-releases.

The BookTok Phenomenon

Levy plucked “I That Have Actually Never Known Male” from the backlist catalogue of Harpman’s French author, expecting the dark book, which follows 40 women locked up in a below ground bunker, holding on to their mankind as they’re restricted from talking, touching or singing, to interest Transit’s core target market of literary-minded publication buyers.

Harpman, a Belgian-Jewish writer and experienced psychoanalyst, passed away of cancer in 2012 at the age of 82. Greater than a decade later, she came to be a BookTok experience with the re-release of her dystopian book, “I That Have Never Ever Recognized Men.”

“Our existing political environment and social climate feels very dystopian,” said Carmin, a 29-year-old grad student living in Chicago, that shares her life, and literary referrals, under the name CC’s Thoughts.

Beyond the Bunker: Harpman’s Other Works

Because going viral, guide has actually marketed about 600,000 copies– the type of numbers typically booked for Hollywood-endorsed beach reviews, blockbuster spy stories and succulent celeb memoirs– and it’s still reaching new readers, according to author Transportation Books.

Levy said Transportation will release three more of Harpman’s books over the next three years. He’s thrilled for visitors to look a different side of the author in “We Were Forbidden.” It opens up bleakly with “The Ardennes Forest”– “a brother or sister of ‘I That Have Actually Never Recognized Male,'” according to Levy– yet after that branches out right into an autobiographical tale concerning a feisty teenager shaking up plumes while residing in Morocco to get away World War II. The book ends with a provocative tale, called “The Mop Storage room,” concerning an upper crust Belgian adulteress.