First published in 1938, this towering work by Philippe Panneton (writing under the pen name Ringuet) is a definitive and unsentimental example of the roman du terroir—the novel of the land. The story traces the life, triumphs, and ultimate decline of Euchariste Moisan, a proud, traditional farmer in rural Quebec whose existence is deeply and inextricably bound to his thirty acres of ancestral farmland.

As the seasons pass and generations change, Moisan's agrarian world slowly succumbs to the unstoppable forces of industrialization, modern economic hardship, and the lure of city life in New England. Earning the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction for its English translation (Thirty Acres) in 1940, this novel remains a profound, beautifully written, and masterful portrait of rural French-Canadian society in transition.