\b0 Born in Paris in 1840 to an Italian father, Emile Zola spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence.
On his return to Paris, he published his first novel, \i ThΘrΦse Raquin\i0 , at the age of twenty-seven. A poet of naturalism, observer of places and social classes, and enthusiast over theories of heredity, he gradually composed a saga of thirty novels
that paint a picture of the \i Rougon-Macquart, natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire\i0 . A convinced republican and believer in social progress, he took an enthusiastic interest in developments in the economy, denounced injusti
ce, and showed great concern for the fate of the working class (\i Germinal\i0 , 1885). After his defense of Dreyfus, legal action was taken against him and he made many enemies. He died in 1902, suffocated in his house under circumstances that remain my
