The Green Child - Herbert Read

The Green Child by Herbert Read / ISBN 9780811221825 / 203-page paperback from New Directions, reprinted with the original cover by Alvin Lustig

I love this book, which I enthused about in this old post.

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A visionary masterpiece filled with green children, quicksand portals, imaginary countries, revolutionary dictators, and subterranean worlds

The Green Child is the only novel by Herbert Read ― the famous English poet, anarchist, and literary critic. First published by New Directions in 1948, it remains a singular work of bewildering imagination and radiance. The author considered it a philosophical myth akin to Plato’s cave.

Olivero, the former dictator of a South American country, has returned to his native England after faking his own assassination. On a walk he sees, through a cottage window, a green-skinned young girl tied to a chair. He watches in horror as the kidnapper forces the girl to drink lamb’s blood from a cup. Olivero rescues the child, and she leads him into unknown realms.