The Green Child

First published in 1935, Herbert Read's only novel is a strange, powerful and original work: a sustained piece of political and philosophical fantasy. It tells the story of Dr Olivero, president of a small South American country, who fakes his own assassination and returns in disguise to the English village of his youth. Arriving late in the evening, he notices that the village stream appears to be running uphill. Intrigued, he follows the stream and comes across a lonely mill where he rescues the Green Child, a speechless creature with semi-transparent flesh, from her sadistic husband. She leads Olivero to the millstream's source and plunges him into her strange, subterranean world.