The Man Who Planted Trees (French title L'homme qui plantait des arbres), also known as The Story of Elzéard Bouffier, The Most Extraordinary Character I Ever Met, and The Man Who Planted Hope and Reaped Happiness, is an allegorical tale by French author Jean Giono, published in 1953.
It tells the story of one shepherd's long and successful singlehanded effort to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps in Provence throughout the first half of the 20th century. The tale is quite short—only about 4000 words long. It was composed in French, but first published in English.
Read more about The Man Who Planted Trees: Plot, A True Story?, Real-life Counterparts, Film, TV or Theatrical Adaptations, Spoken Word Recordings, Related Works
Famous quotes containing the words man and/or planted:
“Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it.... He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things, but each according to its nature, and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children’s hands, in front-yard plots,—now standing by wall-sides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests;Mthe last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)