Émile Zola 
Germinal 

‘Germinal’ (1885) 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.The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means ‘seed’; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst the miners.

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism.

Translated by Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)