His Excellency [Son Exc. Eugene Rougon]

About Author

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (April 2, 1840 – September 29, 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, and playwright who was the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and a major contributor to the creation of theatrical naturalism. He was a key figure in France's political liberalization and the exoneration of the wrongfully accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, as reflected in his renowned newspaper editorial J'Accuse...! In 1901 and 1902, Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prizes in Literature. François Zola (formerly Francesco Zolla) and Émilie Aubert gave birth to Zola in Paris in 1840. His father was an Italian engineer of Greek heritage, born in Venice in 1795, who designed the Zola Dam at Aix-en-Provence; his mother was French. When Émile was three years old, his family relocated to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast. His father died four years later, in 1847, leaving his mother on a small pension. The Zolas relocated to Paris in 1858, where Émile's childhood friend Paul Cézanne soon joined him. Zola began writing in a romantic style. Émile's widowed mother had hoped for him to pursue a legal career, but he failed his baccalauréat examination twice.

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