Adam Thorpe's unflinching translation brings Zola's dark and shocking masterwork to life Mysterious disappearances, domestic cases, noiseless, bloodless snuffings-out . . . the law can look as deep as
La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a comp
Zola's prophetic celebration of unbridled commerce and consumerism, The Ladies' Paradise (Au bonheur des dames, 1883) recounts the frenzied transformations that made late nineteenth-century Paris the
This is a documentary-style account of political unrest and personal travail in a late 19th-century French coalfield. Despite the grimness of his subject and the accuracy of his description, Zola tell
The penultimate novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, La Debacle (1892) concerns the dramatic events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-71. During Zola's lifetime, it was the best-sellin
The French novelist's classic study of a prostitute's dissolute existence and spiritual disintegration reflects his concern with the influence of heredity and environment
In January 1898 French novelist and critic Emile Zola played an important part in the defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew unjustly accused of selling military secrets to Germany. On the fr
