Being an Oak Life as a tree

About this book

The enchanting biography of an ancient tree.

For over two centuries, as rulers have risen and fallen and wars have raged, one majestic oak tree has lived out an epic drama. From germination in 1780 to adapting to the changing climate of the modern age, its struggles and triumphs took place far from human eyes. That is, until one day a young man named Laurent Tillon came across it, and a decades-long relationship began ...

In this dazzling book, biodiversity expert Tillon narrates the story of the tree he calls Quercus. Evoking the richness which is all around us, he reveals that Quercus is embedded in a network of ever-shifting relationships, from close alliances between plants and animals to battles between insects, birds and fungi.

A book of ecology unlike any other, Being an Oak offers a tree-eyed view of life on earth.

Originally published in French in 2021 as Être un Chêne: Sous l'Écorce de Quercus by Actes Sud.

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Biography

Laurent Tillon is head of biodiversity at France's National Forestry Office, in charge of drawing up inventories of forest fauna, especially mammals and batrachians. He is the author of Listening to Nature (Payot, 2018), the bestselling Being An Oak (Actes Sud, 2021), and Night Phantoms: Bats and Humans (Actes Sud, 2023). He lives in the heart of Rambouillet Forest.

Jessica Moore is an author and Booker-nominated literary translator. She is a former Lannan writer-in-residence and Banff International Literary Translation Centre alumnus, as well as a former VP for the Literary Translators' Association of Canada. Jessica lives in Toronto, near the shores of Lake Ontario, that inland sea.