WRITER

Émile Zola

1840 - 1902

Photo of Émile Zola

Icon of person Émile Zola

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also US: , French: [emil zɔla]; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Émile Zola has received more than 3,766,170 page views. His biography is available in 113 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 110 in 2019). Émile Zola is the 42nd most popular writer (up from 52nd in 2019), the 37th most popular biography from France (up from 49th in 2019) and the 11th most popular French Writer.

Émile Zola is most famous for his novel, "J'accuse" (I accuse) in which he accuses the French government of anti-Semitism.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.8M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 80.76

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 113

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 11.36

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 4.25

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The Three Cities Trilogy
2003
Nana
French fiction, Classic Literature, Fiction
1880
Assommoir
Fiction, French literature, Married women
1870
Au bonheur des dames
Department stores, Fiction, French fiction
Translated into English titled "The Ladies Paradise". BBC did a series on Masterpiece Theater.The novel tells the story of Denise Baudu, a 20-year-old woman who comes to Paris with her younger brothers and begins working as a saleswoman at the department store Au Bonheur des Dames. You read about the inner workings of the store from the employees' perspective, including the 13-hour workdays, and the bare lodgings for the female staff. Many of the conflicts in the novel spring from each employee's struggle for advancement and the malicious infighting and gossip among the staff.Denise's story is played against the career of Octave Mouret, the owner of Au Bonheur des Dames, whose retail innovations and store expansions threaten the existence of all the neighborhood shops. There's also a love story.
1883
Thérèse Raquin
Fiction, Murder, Adultery
1880
Germinal
Fiction, Strikes and lockouts, Coal miners
The thirteenth novel in Emile Zola's great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity's capacity for compassion and hope.Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all.
1885
Nana
French fiction, Classic Literature, Fiction
1880
The Three Cities Trilogy
Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Paris (france), fiction, Clergy, fiction
2003
Assommoir
Fiction, French literature, Married women
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.
1870
La terre
Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Classic Literature, Fiction
Jean, ce matin-la, un semoir de toile bleue noue sur le ventre, en tenait la poche ouverte de la main gauche, et de la droite, tous les trois pas, il y prenait une poignee de ble, que d'un geste, a la volee, il jetait. Ses gros souliers trouaient et emportaient la terre grasse, dans le balancement cadence de son corps; tandis que, a chaque jet, au milieu de la semence blonde toujours volante, on voyait luire les deux galons rouges d'une veste d'ordonnance, qu'il achevait d'user.
1887
Germinal
Fiction, Strikes and lockouts, Coal miners
The thirteenth novel in Emile Zola's great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity's capacity for compassion and hope.Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all.
1885
Thérèse Raquin
Fiction, Murder, Adultery
1880
Nana
French fiction, Classic Literature, Fiction
1880
Germinal
Fiction, Strikes and lockouts, Coal miners
The thirteenth novel in Emile Zola's great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity's capacity for compassion and hope.Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all.
1885
Thérèse Raquin
Fiction, Murder, Adultery
1880
Assommoir
Fiction, French literature, Married women
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.
1870
La terre
Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Classic Literature, Fiction
Jean, ce matin-la, un semoir de toile bleue noue sur le ventre, en tenait la poche ouverte de la main gauche, et de la droite, tous les trois pas, il y prenait une poignee de ble, que d'un geste, a la volee, il jetait. Ses gros souliers trouaient et emportaient la terre grasse, dans le balancement cadence de son corps; tandis que, a chaque jet, au milieu de la semence blonde toujours volante, on voyait luire les deux galons rouges d'une veste d'ordonnance, qu'il achevait d'user.
1887
The Three Cities Trilogy
Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Paris (france), fiction, Clergy, fiction
2003

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Émile Zola ranks 42 out of 7,302. Before him are Alexander Pushkin, Friedrich Schiller, H. P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, Hermann Hesse, and Charles Baudelaire. After him are Stendhal, Euripides, Gustave Flaubert, Aristophanes, Jane Austen, and Aeschylus.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1840, Émile Zola ranks 3. Before him are Claude Monet, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. After him are Auguste Rodin, Crazy Horse, Murad V, Victoria, Princess Royal, Alphonse Daudet, Odilon Redon, Edward Drinker Cope, Carl Menger, and Ernst Abbe. Among people deceased in 1902, Émile Zola ranks 1. After him are Cecil Rhodes, Levi Strauss, Swami Vivekananda, Rudolf Virchow, Samuel Butler, Maria Goretti, Marie Henriette of Austria, Francis, Duke of Cádiz, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Ion Ivanovici, and Albert of Saxony.

Others Born in 1840

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Others Deceased in 1902

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In France

Among people born in France, Émile Zola ranks 37 out of 6,770. Before him are Édith Piaf (1915), Paul Gauguin (1848), Émile Durkheim (1858), Alexandre Dumas (1802), Charles Baudelaire (1821), and Pierre Curie (1859). After him are Stendhal (1783), Gustave Flaubert (1821), Henry IV of France (1553), Simone de Beauvoir (1908), Octave Mirbeau (1848), and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (1122).

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Among WRITERS In France

Among writers born in France, Émile Zola ranks 11. Before him are Honoré de Balzac (1799), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900), Denis Diderot (1713), Alexandre Dumas (1802), and Charles Baudelaire (1821). After him are Stendhal (1783), Gustave Flaubert (1821), Simone de Beauvoir (1908), Octave Mirbeau (1848), Marcel Proust (1871), and Romain Rolland (1866).

French born Writers

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