This dark fable tells the story of four English children who run away to the French countryside to establish their own utopian community. All seems well in The Republic of Trees as the children hunt, fall in love and educate themselves in the principles of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract. But the sudden arrival of Joy and the new disciplines she brings, and their increasingly intense, obsessive and erotic relationships alter the mood of the camp irrevocably. As the shadows of a dystopian nightmare start to blend with reality in the forest, and the coded revolutionary language of the group takes on a clipped, macabre tone, The Republic of Trees powers towards a shocking, violent and terrifying conclusion. The Republic of Trees is a compelling, disturbing and imaginatively charged tale of adolescence, the desire to escape, and sexual fear and awakening.