The Man Who Planted Trees

by Jean Giono

Overview

A sustainably printed reissue of the 1953 classic

'And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns'

In 1910, while hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzéard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness.

Ten years later, after surviving the First World War, he visits the shepherd again and sees the young forest he has created spreading slowly over the valley. Elzéard's solitary, silent work continues and the narrator returns year after year to see the miracle he is gradually creating: a verdant, green landscape that is a testament to one man's creative instinct.

VINTAGE EARTH is a series of books that reveals our ever-changing relationship with the environment. These are stories old and young, set in worlds real or imagined, that allow us to explore our connection to the natural world. Transformative, wild, surprising and essential, these novels take on the most urgent story of our times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784878016
Publisher:	Penguin Random House UK
Publication date:	02/01/2023
Pages:	56
Sales rank:	89,066
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	8 Years

About the Author

Jean Giono (Author)was born in 1895 in Manosque, Provence, and lived there most of his life. He supported his family working as a bank clerk for eighteen years before his first two novels were published, thanks to the generosity of André Gide, to critical acclaim. He went on to write thirty novels, including The Horseman on the Roof, and numerous essays and stories. In 1953, the year in which he wrote The Man who Planted Trees, he was awarded the Prix Monégasque for his collective work. Jean Giono died in October 1970.

Harry Brockway (Illustrator) was born in 1958 and studied sculpture at Kingston Art School and at the Royal Academy, where he learned engraving. He makes a living as a stonemason as well as a wood engraver.

Editorial Reviews

   • "One of the greatest writers of our generation." —Andre Mairaux 

   • "Giono: he's a god. I rank him with Chateaubriand and Proust." —Jean d'Ormesson 

   • "In Giono's work what every sensitive, full-blooded individual ought to be able to recognise at once is 'the song of the world." —Henry Miller

From the Publisher