Zola, Émile

(1840-1902)

   writer

   Born in Paris, Émile Zola spent his formative years, raised by his mother, in Aix-en-Provence. After returning to Paris, he soon abandoned his studies and took a number of jobs before becoming a journalist. At first an ardent romantic (Contes à Ninon, 1864) and critic of modern art (Édouard Manet, 1867), he moved to naturalism with Thérèse Raquin (1867) and, an enthusiast of claude Bernard, sought to write an "experimental novel" based on theories of heredity and the environment. in 1868, he outlined the genealogy of Rougon-Macquart and, from 1871 to 1893, the 20 volumes of Histoire naturelle et social d'une famille sous le Second Empire appeared. It was then L'Assomoir (1877) that assured Zola his success. Henceforth a leader of the naturalist writers (guy de maupassant and joris-karl huysmans), he defined his style in Le Roman expérimental (1880) and continued his cyclical work: Nana (1880), which harshly denounced the foibles of the wealthy and elite, and Germinal (1885), a powerful evocation of a miners' strike that was extremely successful and controversial. His preoccupation with social issues (he was a reader of charles fourier, pierre-joseph proudhon, and Karl Marx) was already apparent in Au Bonheur des dames (1883), and his emerging socialist sympathies were soon strongly reinforced. Converted, he followed these inquiries into the world of workers to the doctrines of socialism and, from that point on, had a humanitarian character (Les quatre Évangiles, 1899-1903 ar hymns to human progress) and sense of political commitment, especially after the Dreyfus affair (see dreyfus, alfred), during which he issued his resounding statement, "J'accuse," published in