A rediscovered classic, Jaqueline Harpman’s I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN (1995) is a story wherein fear, femininity, love, life and more are stripped to their base essentials; examining what it would be like for a young girl raised in captivity to grapple with the utterly alien concepts of the world, of language, and of her own body. After reading it, I immediately wanted to put my own design spin on this bleak yet surprisingly beautiful dystopian novella.

I wanted to avoid certain clichés that crop up time and again in this book’s other covers (i.e. ladders, shadowy female faces, abstract planets) and get right to the heart of this story - the central dynamic between our young heroine and the other 39 imprisoned women, who refuse to tell her much of anything about the world that was. While they can remember life before outside the harsh parameters of their confinement, she is stuck in the dark - unable to escape her limited understanding of the world and of herself.

I planned, sketched and created several concepts for this cover, all of which you can find below.