Germinal

Description

New translation by Roger Pearson of the novel considered to be Zola's masterpiece Considered by Andre Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty and wretchedness of a mining community in northern France under the second empire. At the centre of the novel is Etienne Lantier, a handsome 21 year-old mechanic, intelligent but with little education and a dangerous predisposition to murderous, alcoholic rage. Germinal tells the parallel story of Etienne's refusal to accept what he appears destined to become, and of the miners' difficult decision to strike in order to fight for a better standard of life.

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction. His principal work, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a panorama of mid-19th century French life, in a cycle of 20 novels which Zola wrote over a period of 22 years. Roger Pearson is professor of French at the University of Oxford. He is the author of critical works on Voltaire, Stendhal and Mallarme and has translated Voltaire, Zola and Maupassant.

"[Germinal] made me realize that when books are considered 'classics,' most of the time they're actually very readable and exciting." -Daniel Radcliffe