Novel
Second Harvest
Regain
Jean Giono · 1930
Synopsis
Aubignane, a wind-lashed village in Haute-Provence, is gradually emptying of its inhabitants. Soon only old Mamèche and Panturle, a solitary hunter, remain. Arsule, a woman who came with an itinerant knife grinder, ends up staying with Panturle. Under her influence, he takes up the plough again and sows wheat, and the abandoned village begins to come back to life.
Context
The novel was published by Grasset in 1930; it is the last part of the so-called Pan trilogy, after Colline and Un de Baumugnes. In it Giono describes the repopulation of an abandoned village, a motif that would recur often in his work. An English translation, by Henri Fluchère and Geoffrey Myers, first appeared under the title Harvest. In 1937 Marcel Pagnol made a film from it that bears the same title as the book.
Who it is for
A short novel, in a lyrical, sensual language close to the earth; it can be read independently of the other two volumes.
Prizes and reception
Reissued in English by Harvill in 1999, under the title Second Harvest, with woodcuts by L. W. Graux.
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