Jean Giono

The man who planted trees

A beautiful gift edition of this classic fable about one man's quest to create a forest. 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 the 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.

The Man Who Planted Trees

This is the first English-language translation of Jean Giono's 1947 masterpiece, Un Roi Sans Divertissement, A King Without Diversion, which takes its title from Pascal's famous remark that "a man without diversions is a man with misery to spare." Giono's novel is an existential detective story set in a snowbound mountain village in the mid-nineteenth century. Deep in winter, inhabitants of the village begin mysteriously to disappear, and Langlois is sent to investigate. A manhunt begins and Langlois brings the case to what appears to be a successful conclusion. Some years later, again in winter, Langlois returns to the village, now having been promoted to the position of captain of the brigade that protects the inhabitants and their property from wolves. Langlois is a charismatic and enigmatic kingly figure who fascinates the villagers he has been sent to protect, and yet he feels set apart from them and from himself, and as he pursues the wolf who is preying on the village, he identifies more and more with the murderer who had been his earlier target. The splendid, tormented Langlois is very much at the center of the novel, but he is surrounded by a full cast of remarkable characters. There is Sausage, the "saucy" and "sassy" cafe owner; Fre de ric II, the brave sawmill owner who tracks the killer; Ravanel Georges, an almost-victim of the murderer; the potbellied Royal Prosecutor with his profound knowledge of "men's souls"; the murdered Marie Chazottes and her "peppery blood"; and an exotic woman from the "very high" places in Mexico who befriends Langlois and Sausage. In Alyson Waters's outstanding translation the many voices in this wonderfully inventive and diverting novel by one of the most perennially popular of modern French writers come to brilliant life in English.

A King Alone

Seulement, ce soir-là, il ne fumait pas un cigare : il fumait une cartouche de dynamite. Ce que Delphine et Saucisse regardèrent comme d'habitude, la petite brise, le petit fanal de voiture, c'était le grésillement de la mèche. Et il y eut, au fond du jardin, l'énorme éclaboussement d'or qui éclaira la nuit pendant une seconde. C'était la tête de Langlois qui prenait, enfin, les dimensions de l'univers. Qui a dit : "Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères " ?

Un roi sans divertissement

Inspirado em acontecimentos verdadeiros, traduzido em diversas línguas e largamente difundido pelo mundo inteiro, "O Homem Que Plantava Árvores" é uma história inesquecível sobre o poder que o ser humano tem de influenciar o mundo à sua volta. Narra a vida de um homem e o seu esforço solitário, constante e paciente, para fazer do sítio onde vive um lugar especial. Com as suas próprias mãos e uma generosidade sem limites, desconsiderando o tamanho dos obstáculos, faz, do nada, surgir uma floresta inteira - com um ecossistema rico e sustentável. É um livro admirável que nos mostra como um homem humilde e insignificante aos olhos da sociedade, a viver longe do mundo e usando apenas os seus próprios meios, consegue reflorestar sozinho uma das regiões mais inóspitas e áridas de França.

O Homem Que Plantava Árvores

L'uomo che piantava gli alberi

The Horseman on the Roof is a 1951 adventure novel written by Jean Giono. It tells the story of Angelo Pardi, a young Italian carbonaro colonel of hussars, caught up in the 1832 cholera epidemic in Provence.

The Horseman on the Roof

Daniel Bueno

Cecilia Ciscato

Samuel Titan Jr.

Certa vez, caminhando sozinho pelo sul da França, um rapaz se vê em maus lençóis: a paisagem é desértica, o vento ruge como uma fera, os vilarejos estão em ruínas e não se encontra água em nenhum lugar. Quando já vai perdendo a esperança, vê ao longe uma silhueta, que talvez seja um tronco isolado - mas é, na verdade, um velho pastor de ovelhas, que lhe dá água e abrigo. Só que esse não é um pastor como os outros. Quieto e calado, Elzéard Bouffier dedica-se mais que tudo a semear árvores: carvalhos, bordos, faias, bétulas e salgueiros, que planta em toda parte. Os anos passam, os encontros se repetem, a região vai cobrando outros ares e vida nova, sem que ninguém saiba como se produziu tamanha transformação - ninguém, a não ser os leitores desta fábula inspiradora de Jean Giono.

"South of France, 1950: A solitary vagabond walks through the villages, towns, valleys, and foothills of the region between northern Provence and the Alps. He picks up casual work along the way, and spends the winter as the custodian of a walnut oil mill. He also picks up a problematic companion: a card sharp and con man, whom he calls "the Artist." The action moves from place to place, and episode to episode, in truly picaresque fashion. Everything is told in the first person, present tense, by the vagabond Narrator, who goes unnamed. He himself is a curious combination of qualities-poetic, resentful, cynical, compassionate, flirtatious, and self-absorbed. While The Open Road can be read as loosely strung entertainment, interspersed with caustic reflections, it can also be interpreted as a projection of the relationship between author, art, and audience. But it is ultimately an exploration of the tensions and boundaries between affection and commitment, and of the competing needs for solitude, independence, and human bonds. As always in Giono, the language is rich in natural imagery. Colourful idiomatic expressions-many of them unfamiliar even in France today-pepper every page. "Eh, mister, a novel is a mirror, out strolling along the open road. Sometimes it reflects the azure of the heavens, sometimes the muck of the potholes." Whether Giono took his title and inspiration from this passage in Stendhal's Scarlet and Black, or from Whitman's "Song of the Open Road," both these sources course powerfully along The Open Road"--

The Open Road

First published in French by Bernard Grasset as Colline in 1929.

Hill

One of the final novellas by the acclaimed French writer Jean Giono, Ennemonde is a winding tale of people living in a hard yet beautiful land. "Roads move cautiously around the High Country..." So begins the story of Ennemonde, but also of her sons, daughters, neighbors, lovers, and enemies, and especially of the mountains that stand guard behind their home in the Camargue. This is a place of stark and terrifying beauty, where violence strikes suddenly, whether from the hand of a neighbor or from the sky itself. Giono captures every wrinkle, glare, and glance with wry delight, celebrating the uniquely tough people whose eyes sparkle with the cruel majesty of the landscape. Full of delectable detours and startling insights, Ennemonde will take you by the hand for an unforgettable tour of this master novelist's singular world.

Ennemonde

L'homme qui plantait des arbres

The Song of the World is a tale of primitive love and vendetta set in the timeless French landscape of river, mountain and forest.

The Song of the World

Pavel Čech

Jiří Reynek

Muž, který sázel stromy

Grand Troupeau, Le

Der Mann, der Bäume pflanzte

a novel

Melville

Ağaç diken adam

A captivating literary and historical record, Jean Giono's Occupation Journal offers a glimpse into life in collaborationist France during the Second World War, as seen through the eyes and thoughts of one of France's greatest and most independent writers. Written during the years of France's occupation by the Nazis, Jean Giono's Occupation Journal reveals the inner workings of one of France's great literary minds during one of the country's darkest hours. A renowned writer and committed pacifist throughout the 1930s--a conviction that resulted in his imprisonment before and after the Occupation--Giono spent the war in the village of Contadour in Provence, where he wrote, corresponded with other writers, and cared for his consumptive daughter. This journal records his musings on art and literature, his observations of life, his interactions with the machinery of the collaborationist Vichy regime, as well as his forceful political convictions. Giono recounts the details of his life with fierce independence of thought and novelistic attention to character and dialogue. Occupation Journal is a fascinating historical document as well as a unique window into one of French literature's most voracious and critical minds.

Occupation Journal

Le hussard sur le toit : avec son allure de comptine, ce titre intrigue. Pourquoi sur le toit ? Qu'a-t-il fallu pour l'amener là ? Rien moins qu'une épidémie de choléra, qui ravage la Provence vers 1830, et les menées révolutionnaires des carbonari piémontais. Le Hussard est d'abord un roman d'aventures : Angelo Pardi, jeune colonel de hussards exilé en France, est chargé d'une mission mystérieuse. Il veut retrouver Giuseppe, carbonaro comme lui, qui vit à Manosque. Mais le choléra sévit : les routes sont barrées, les villes barricadées, on met les voyageurs en quarantaine, on soupçonne Angelo d'avoir empoisonné les fontaines ! Seul refuge découvert par hasard, les toits de Manosque ! Entre ciel et terre, il observe les agitations funèbres des humains, contemple la splendeur des paysages et devient ami avec un chat. Une nuit, au cours d'une expédition, il rencontre une étonnante et merveilleuse jeune femme. Tous deux feront route ensemble, connaîtront l'amour et le renoncement.

Jean Giono

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