The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

Q. Who's the man who planted trees

A. Elz�ard Bouffier, a shepherd in Provence. For decades he planted trees in what had been a wasteland in order to regenerate the landscape.

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Q. So that's it He planted a few trees

A. It's a simple tale, but, in its simple way, quite profound. It has inspired many people all over the globe, who have found deep meaning in the selfless work of a man who quietly, patiently and with great humility transformed the world around him.

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Q. Is it true

A. Literally No. But it could be, and many people have believed it to be. When Giono was first commissioned by an American magazine to write a short piece about an unforgettable character, he produced this story; the editors of the magazine went through the records of the little town of Banon, where Bouffier was supposed to be buried, and grew very hot under the collar when they discovered to whole thing to be fiction - they had wanted a real unforgettable person. They dropped the story and Giono gave it 'to the world'. A few years later a German magazine running a story about Giono and Bouffier asked for a photograph of the shepherd, which Giono, to his great amusement, duly supplied.

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But the 'truth' in the story is not whether Bouffier actually existed and really planted hundreds of thousands of trees, it's in the message: that we are responsible for our environment and we have the power to change things for the better.

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Q. A story the ecology movement should adopt

A. It already has. The book has inspired reafforestation schemes in various countries, and in the UK the Woodland Trust - a high-profile organisation which undertakes wood planting and management and is responsible for running the Millennium Wood programme - give copies away to help spread the word.

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Q. So it's a bit of a classic, then

A. In a nutshell, yes. It first appeared in print in English in 1954 in Vogue magazine, as 'The Man Who Planted Trees and Grew Happiness'. Within a couple of years it had been translated into at least a dozen languages. Giono wrote that his purpose in writing the book 'was to make people love the tree, or more precisely, to make them love planting trees,' and he's had more than a little success in this regard.

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Q. What about Jean Giono

A. Giono was born in Provence in 1895. He developed his lifelong love of nature as a child in the small mountain town of Manosque - where he lived almost all of his life - and from the shepherd family with whom, as a boy, he spent his summers. As a soldier in the First World War, he was one of his company's 11 survivors of the Battle of Verdun, and he wrote about his experience of the horrors of war in Le grand troupeau (1931; To the Slaughterhouse).

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With little formal education, he was largely self-taught. His series of regionalist, anti-intellectual novels about the nobility of simple people became popular in France during the 1920s and 1930s, especially the trilogy Le Chant du monde (1934; Song of the World).

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His pacifism got him into trouble during the Second World War, when his stance was interpreted as collaboration with the Nazis. After the war many in the French intellectual establishment, in particular Andr� Gide, came to the defence of his reputation. In the 1940s and 1950s developed a new concise and somewhat more optimistic style. Among his best works of these years are Le Hussard sur le toit (1952; The Horseman on the Roof) and Ennemonde et autres caract�res (1968; Ennemonde). Almost all his works are lyrical portrayals of the people and countryside of his beloved Provence.

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However, The Man Who Panted Trees remains his best-known work internationally, and is his best-selling work by far. He said of the success of his fable: 'It does nor bring me in one single penny and that is why it has accomplished what it was written for.'

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Giono died in the town in which he was born in 1970.

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Q. Is the book available in the UK

A. Yes. Two UK editions are on the market. One was published by Peter Owen in 1989 (ISBN 0720610214) with terrific woodcuts by American engraver Michael McCurdy, and this is probably, on balance, the more pleasing of the two. Harvill published the other one in the mid-1990s (ISBN 1860461174) in a different translation with a different set of woodcuts.

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Q. And on the net

A. Just type 'man who planted trees' into your search engine and loads of sites will come up. The complete story is available on the net, though one publisher in Canada is actively trying to suppress this. (The argument over copyright is a little sticky, because of Giono's relinquishing of any ownership, though individual publishers and translators do have rights over their own versions of the text.)

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Q. Anything else

A. BBC Radio have broadcast the story read by actor Bill Patterson, and it works very well as a spoken word piece. There is also an award-winning Canadian cartoon, and various stage adaptations and musical interpretations have been undertaken.

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By Simon Smith