Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman
conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in
1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so
forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted
'Germinal! Germinal!'. The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider
who enters the community and eventually leads his fellow-miners in a strike
protesting against pay-cuts - a strike which becomes a losing battle
against starvation, repression, and sabotage. Yet despite all the violence
and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations, Lantier
retains his belief in the ultimate germination of a new society, leading to
a better world. Germinal is a dramatic novel of working life and everyday
relationships, but it is also a complex novel of ideas, given fresh vigour
and power in this new translation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years
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