I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Short, stark, and compelling, this little book was originally published in French in 1995, and the first English translation published in 1997. It barely made a blip on the literature world, and then Vintage published it in2019 and Transit republished it in 2022. 

I found myself captivated by this matter of fact recitation of life on a distant place, a distant land, possibly a distant planet. The group of women, and the decisions made along the way, each reflect the idea of society and the weight that we give them (rightly or wrongly, as you may choose). There is no proselytizing, here, just the journey of one step after another to discover life and what makes it livable. 

By the end, I had come to love the narrator and cheer for her.