Germinal / Edition 1

by Emile Zola

Overview

Germinal by Emile Zola Translated by Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola's masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel - an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s - has been published and translated in over one hundred countries and has additionally inspired five film adaptations and two television productions. Germinal was written between April 1884 and January 1885. It was first serialized between November 1884 and February 1885 in the periodical Gil Blas, then in March 1885 published as a book. The novel's central character is Étienne Lantier, previously seen in L'Assommoir (1877), and originally to have been the central character in Zola's "murder on the trains" thriller La Bête humaine (1890) before the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Germinal persuaded him otherwise. The young migrant worker arrives at the forbidding coal mining town of Montsou in the bleak area of the far north of France to earn a living as a miner. Sacked from his previous job on the railways for assaulting a superior, Étienne befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9782253004226
Publisher:	Centre d'Exportation du Livre Francais
Publication date:	01/28/2000
Edition description:	French Edition
Pages:	538
Product dimensions:	4.30(w) x 6.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Language:	French

About the Author

French novelist, playwright, and journalist Emile Zola (1840–1902) was a leading proponent of naturalism in fiction, as expressed in his monumental 20-novel series Les Rougon-Macquart. Nominated for the first and second Nobel Prizes in Literature, Zola also played a major role in the exoneration of the falsely accused officer at the center of the Dreyfus Affair; the headline of his open letter to the President of France, J'accuse...!, remains an international watchword for speaking truth to power.

Table of Contents

Introduction		vii	(22)
Note on the Translation		xxix	(1)
Select Bibliography		xxx	(2)
Chronology of Emile Zola		xxxii	(4)
Plan of Montsou and surrounding areas		xxxvi
GERMINAL		1	(524)
Explanatory Notes		525

Editorial Reviews

"Superb."—Professor James Chastain, Ohio University

"This is far and away the best English translation of Germinal currently available. The translator has captured the nineteenth century flavor of the original without sacrificing clarity or meaning. The introduction and notes are excellent and the map of Montsou and vicinity is a stroke of genius."—Professor Richard Cumming, University of Utah

From the Publisher