We Were Forbidden

Jacqueline Harpmen | Ros Schwartz (Translated by)
Paperback, 112 pages
July 7, 2026

Preorder Available July 7, 2026

$18.95

Description

From the bestselling author of I Who Have Never Known Men comes a startling trio of novellas—translated into English for the first time—each plumbing the depths of that vital human instinct: defiance.

In the wake of some unfathomable war, a woman wanders the forest. She and her fellow survivors are forbidden from leaving its boundaries or pausing in their eternal march through its strange depths.

Attending a rigid French school in 1940s Casablanca, a teenage girl is barred from ever questioning the dogma she is taught to believe—her punishment for doing so will be as swift as it is shocking.

Locked in a loveless marriage in the Belgian bourgeoisie, a young woman satisfies her husband's desires, twice weekly, as required. She has not yet thought to pursue her own.

These novellas—the first works by Jacqueline Harpman to arrive in English in decades—reveal her incredible stylistic range and demonstrate once more her penetrating psychological insight. Here we find the origins of a singular, relentless voice.

Format: Trade Paperback

Author: Jacqueline Harpman

Publisher: Transit Books

Pub Date: July 7, 2026

Category: Fiction / Literary

ISBN: 9798893380583

Additional information

Weight 0.4 lbs
Dimensions 8.00 × 5.20 in