I Who Have Never Known Men was first published in Belgium thirty years ago. Since being brought back into print by Bay Area publisher Transit Books in 2022, it has sparked the attention of hundreds of thousands of new readers. Award-winning author Carmen Maria Machado writes in the introduction for the new collector’s edition that it was a book that “enticed and then inflamed her” when she first came across a used copy in the nineties at a rummage sale. What she discovered—and carried with her for years—is a timeless novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Join us for a conversation with Carmen Maria Machado and KQED’s Alexis Madrigal about the enduring power of this speculative feminist classic and why it has found a new moment with a new generation of readers.

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Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House, the graphic novel The Low, Low Woods, and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. Her essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, This American Life, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the former Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

Alexis Madrigal is a journalist in Oakland, California. He's the co-host of KQED’s current affairs show, Forum, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, where he co-founded The COVID Tracking Project. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of Fusion and a staff writer at Wired. His new book, The Pacific Circuit, was published by MCD x FSG in 2025.