About the author

Jacqueline Harpman (1929–2012) was a Belgian author and psychoanalyst born in Etterbeek, Belgium. Her family, being partly Jewish, fled to Casablanca during the Nazi occupation of Belgium in World War II and returned after the war. She studied French literature and began training as a doctor but could not complete her medical studies due to tuberculosis. Harpman started writing in the 1950s, publishing over fifteen novels and winning several literary prizes, including the Prix Médicis. She resumed writing after qualifying as a psychoanalyst in 1980, with notable works like “I Who Have Never Known Men,” her first novel translated into English. Her rich literary work often reflects her diverse life experiences and psychoanalytic insights.