Émile Zola
1840–1902 · novelist · France
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola 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. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse...! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prizes in Literature in 1901 and 1902.
Read more on WikipediaThe world around them · Paris, 1870s
- Who governs
- The Third Republic is new and fragile. Monarchists hold a majority in parliament until 1877.
- Everyday life
- Most French people still live in the countryside. Paris is being rebuilt along Haussmann's wide boulevards.
- Arts and ideas
- The Impressionists show outside the official Salon, and Zola is writing his Rougon-Macquart novels.
- Meanwhile
- Germany has just united under Prussia, and Japan is racing to modernise.
Their life in their time
- 1840
- 18488 years old
- 185212 years old
- 185212 years oldCézanne and Zola meet at schoolclassmate
- 187030 years old
- 187434 years oldThe first Impressionist exhibition
- 187535 years oldCarmen opens at the Opéra-Comique
- 188646 years oldZola publishes L'Œuvreauthor
- 189858 years oldPolonium and radium
- 189858 years oldZola publishes “J'accuse…!”author
- 190262 years oldDies
Connected to
- PC
Paul Cézanne · school friends
1852 Friends from their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. They drifted apart after Zola's novel L'Œuvre (1886), whose failed painter Cézanne saw himself in.
Source: wikipedia:Paul_Cézanne - ÉM
Édouard Manet · critic and painter
1866 Zola defended Manet in the press while critics resisted him, and Manet painted his portrait in 1868.
Source: wikipedia:Édouard_Manet - AR
Auguste Rodin · a commission
1891 As the newly elected president of the French writers' society, Zola strongly supported Rodin for its monument to Balzac.
Source: wikipedia:Monument_to_Balzac - GC
Georges Clemenceau · chose the headline
1898 Zola publishes “J'accuse…!”. Zola's open letter on the Dreyfus affair fills the front page of L'Aurore. Clemenceau, who wrote for the paper, gave it its headline.
Source: wikipedia:J'Accuse…!
