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Apr 2, 1840 — Sep 28, 1902· 62 yrs

FRANCE AUTHOR · FICTION · SOCIAL LIFE AND CUSTOMS

Émile Zola

Also known as: Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola, Эмиль Золя

66
BOOKS
4.2
AVG RATING (34)
4
READERS

Emile Zola was a French journalist and novelist known for his series of 20 novels known collectively as Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-93). Zola's style was called literary naturalism; his novels were attacked and even banned for their frankness and sordid detail, and caused quite a bit of controversy in their day. The same traits made him a best-selling author and a star of French literature in his day. In 1898 he then further incurred the wrath of French officials when he published the open letter "J'Accuse," in defense of Alfred Dreyfus, an Army officer who had been convicted of treason. Zola was sentenced to prison for libel, fled to England, and was granted amnesty a few months later. He died in Paris from carbon monoxide poisoning -- the victim of a stopped-up chimney -- a few months before Dreyfus was officially exonerated.

rue Saint-Joseph, France
Wikipedia

OVER the open plain, beneath a starless sky as dark and thick as ink, a man walked alone along the highway from Marchiennes to Montsou, a straight paved road ten kilometers in length, intersecting the beetroot-fields.

— from Germinal

Most acclaimed

#2

Assommoir

4.2 (5)

L'Assommoir is a study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris. Gervaise Macquart, who is featured briefly in the first novel in the series, La Fortune des Rougon, is running away to Paris with her shiftless lover Lantier to work as a washerwoman in a hot, busy laundry. After Lantier leaves her, she swears to never fall in love again. Until she meets Coupeau, a teetotal roofer and loving partner, whom she marries. Gervaise is enjoying the highs and lives her dream life as she opens her own laundry and their daughter Anna (nicknamed Nana) is born. Later Coupeau suffers an injury und gives up to the alcoholism. From that moment their life goes downward, experiencing several embarassing failures, ending up with irreparable debt and irrecoverable tragedies.

#1

La Curee

0.0 (0)
#3

Le Ventre De Paris

3.0 (3)

Au milieu du grand silence, et dans le desert de l'avenue, les voitures de maraichers montaient vers Paris, avec les cahots rythmes de leurs roues, dont les echos battaient les facades des maisons, endormies aux deux bords, derriere les lignes confuses des ormes. Un tombereau de choux et un tombereau de pois, au pont de Neuilly, s'etaient joints aux huit voitures de navets et de carottes qui descendaient de Nanterre ; et les chevaux allaient tout seuls, la tete basse, de leur allure continue et paresseuse, que la montee ralentissait encore.

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