Jean Giono

This is the story of a peaceable shepherd who spent years planting trees, giving life to an arid, desolate countryside.

"Deep in Provence, a century ago, four stone houses perch on a hillside. Wildness presses in from all sides. Beyond a patchwork of fields, a mass of green threatens to overwhelm the village. The animal world--a miming cat, a malevolent boar--displays a mind of its own. The four houses have a dozen residents--and then there is Gagou, a mute drifter. Janet, the eldest of the men, is bedridden; he feels snakes writhing in his fingers and speaks in tongues....