This 1997 Book Became A Science Fiction Fave & BookTok Darling Despite Its Slow Start

Do you know what TikTok is good for other than creating massive doomscroll holes? Reviving old classics. Long before #BookTok turned obscure backlist titles into overnight sensations,"I Who Have Never Known Men" quietly disappeared from mainstream literary conversation after its original release. Written by the now famed Belgian author Jacqueline Harpman, the dystopian novel was first published in France in 1995 before receiving an English-language edition in 1997.

Despite strong reviews from the time of the text's release, the novel didn't find much of a foothold on audiences at first. According to The Times, it remained obscure for decades and the UK edition that appeared "in 1997 under the title 'The Mistress of Silence' never found commercial success ... By the early 2000s, it was selling only a handful of copies a year." 

Decades later, however, the novel experienced one of the most dramatic literary revivals in recent memory. Through a combination of TikTok recommendations, Goodreads reviews, Reddit discussions, and online book communities, "I Who Have Never Known Men" slowly transformed from a forgotten dystopian novel into a modern feminist cult phenomenon.  

According to The Times, amid the first Donald Trump presidency and the resurgence of "The Handmaid's Tale," "In 2018, when an employee at Vintage Classics discovered a copy gathering dust in the office ... a new English translation by Ros Schwartz was published in 2019, restoring the original title, and has seen unprecedented growth in sales ever since."

The book has since sparked renewed interest in feminist dystopias, with part of the book's appeal coming from its unsettlingly simple premise. The plot follows a young unnamed girl imprisoned underground alongside 39 women guarded by silent men. None of the women understand why they are there, and the narrator is the only prisoner with no memory of life before captivity. After an unexpected escape, the women are forced to survive in an empty world while confronting questions surrounding identity, loneliness, survival, and human connection.

According to reports by The Cut, this slow-burning plot eventually prompted Transit Books to release a new U.S. edition in 2022, introducing the story to a younger generation of readers, who quickly began recommending it en masse.

The momentum then turned into real life resurgence of the book once BookTok users began recommending the book en masse. Transit publisher Adam Z. Levy explained to The Cut that although the novel only sold what you'd expect from "a Belgian book in translation that came out 30 years ago, amounting to just a few thousand copies," after the peaked interest on Reddit and TikTok, the book saw its "monthly sales suddenly doubling and tripling." 

Since 2022, the book has continued growing in popularity and by 2024, "U.S. sales [had] reached 100,000 copies, while its Goodreads presence climbed past 138,000 reviews with a strong four star average." Not bad for an almost 30-year-old book. At the time of writing, demand surged so rapidly that publishers since struggled keeping the book in stock (as per The Cut).