Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974), playwright and film director, the first cinematographer to become a member of the French Academy, who made films that were included in the golden fund of French classics, needs no introduction. But we have to get to know Marcel Pagnol the writer again. For the first time in Russian, his novels “Jean, Son of Florette” and “Manon, Mistress of the Springs” are published, which became the basis for films shot by Pagnol himself and Claude Berri, where a whole constellation of magnificent actors shone from Yves Montand and Gerard Depardieu to Emmanuelle Béart. “Jean, son of Florette" and "Manon, Mistress of the Springs" is a real family saga: bright characters, desperate struggle, love that sometimes kills. The action takes place in the picturesque mountains of Haute Provence. The village of Bastide-Blanche has only one hundred and fifty inhabitants, but serious passions run high. In this piece of paradise, the well-being of people depends on a tiny spring. Under the hot sun of Provence, ordinary water becomes a coveted value, synonymous with life itself; it is around water that a war between two families is destined to break out.