‘An army was springing up from the depths of the pits, a harvest of citizens whose seed would germinate and burst through the earth some sunny day.’
Étienne Lantier, a young and hard-working idealist, arrives in a bleak town in the far north of France to earn a living as a miner. He discovers that the miners working there are ill, hungry, and living in poverty. The miners’ conditions continue to worsen and eventually the miners go on strike with Étienne as their leader. Their strike eventually spirals out of control and draws them into conflict with the government.
Often considered to be Zola’s magnum opus and one of the greatest French novels of all time, Germinal is a masterpiece of realism and gives a harsh and uncompromising look at the state of French society in the 19th century.
Émile Zola was a French writer best known for his Les Rougon-Macquart series of novels. He was also an important figure in the political liberalization of France during the 19th century and was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.