i who have never known men by jacqueline harpman

I chastised myself for not having held on to her, for not having understood that she couldn’t go on anymore. I couldn’t forgive her for not being there, for having allowed death to snatch her, to tear her from my clumsy arms. There was a pain in my heart as powerful as the pain of the cancer in my belly, and I who no longer speak because there is no one to hear me, began to call her. I could picture her, sitting on the edge of a mattress, her knees to one side, sewing patiently with her makeshift thread of plaited hairs which kept snapping, stopping to look at me, astonished, quick to recognize my ignorance and teach me what she knew, apologizing that it was so little, and I felt a huge wrench, and began to sob. But suddenly, yesterday, my eyes filled with tears I thought of Anthea, and was overcome by a tremendous wave of grief. The authors express their gratitude to those who taught them, who opened the door to this or that avenue of knowledge, and, because I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, I usually read these words with a degree of indifference. True, I am extremely ignorant: apparently, I know even less of these matters than I thought I did. But why translate when it must have been so easy to learn different languages and read anything you wanted directly? These things leave me utterly baffled. Or, they explain why they felt it was appropriate to publish a new translation of Proust, because previous efforts, laudable though they may be, lacked something or other. How strange! It suggests that people were not avid to learn, and that you had to apologize for wanting to convey your knowledge. This surprises me: surely it was more usual in that world than in the one in which I have lived for people to pass on the knowledge they had acquired? They often seem to feel the need to emphasize that they wrote the book not out of vanity, but because someone asked them to, and that they had thought about it long and hard before accepting. The authors talk readily about themselves, explaining their reasons for writing the book. I only recently started taking an interest in the prefaces. Since I barely venture outside these days, I spend a lot of time in one of the armchairs, rereading the books. he recipient of a number of awards, she was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009 and received the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence in 2017.

Schwartz has translated numerous works of fiction and non-fiction from French. Harpman was a Belgian author of over 15 novels, winning numerous prizes, including the Prix Médicis and the Prix Victor-Rossel, among others. The following is excerpted from Jacqueline Harpman's newly-translated novel, I Who Have Never Known Men.

I who have never known men by jacqueline harpman