"No praise was necessary. He was a man who had found his happiness in a task well done."
Jean Giono's short story, The Man Who Planted Trees (1953), is a parable for modern times, offering a hopeful message about the power of patient, committed efforts to create a better world. Translated by Peter Doyle.
While hiking through Provence and enjoying the wild, unspoilt landscape, our narrator meets a solitary shepherd named Elzéard Bouffier, and watches as he collects, sorts and then plants the hundreds of acorns he finds as he walks through the desolate valley.
The hiker returns to the valley ten years later, shell-shocked and depressed after fighting in the First World War, and finds a young forest slowly spreading over the land; he then returns year after year, witnessing the growth of a verdant, green landscape that is testament to one mans vision and dedication.
The Man Who Planted Trees shows how the small, sustained, selfless and consistent actions of just one individual can effect great change, and is seen as an inspiration for ecological regeneration brought about by man.
Jean Giono (1895-1970) was born in 1895 in 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, 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.