<P> Who Has Seen the Wind is a novel written by Canadian author W.O. Mitchell, who took the title from a famous poem by Christina Rossetti . It was first published in 1947 and has sold close to 1 million copies in Canada . Who Has Seen the Wind is considered to be Mitchell's best known work and is taught in a number of Canadian schools and universities . Quill & Quire listed Who Has Seen the Wind at number 7 on their list of the top 40 Canadian novels of the 20th century . </P> <P> Who Has Seen the Wind tells the story of young Brian O'Connal growing up in the 1930s on the Saskatchewan prairies . Broken into four parts covering different times in young Brian's life, the novel shows Brian struggling to come to terms with issues of life and death on the Canadian prairies . In Mitchell's own preface he clearly explains the central theme of the book when he states, "I have tried to present sympathetically the struggle of a boy to understand...the ultimate meaning of the cycle of life . To him are revealed in moments of fleeting vision the realities of birth, hunger, satiety, eternity, death . They are moments when an inquiring heart seeks finality, and the chain of darkness is broken ." </P>

Who has seen the wind wo mitchell summary