Émile Zola (1840-1902), French writer and critic, was raised in a poor family at Aix-en-Provence and at age eighteen went to Paris where he worked as a clerk and a journalist before turning to writing novels. For many years he used his fiction in the service of his passion for social reform. He published many masterworks but is perhaps most famous for his series of novels called Les Rougon-Macquart, one of the chief monuments of the French naturalist movement.
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Brutal, gripping and heart wrenching, L'Assommoir (also known as The Drinking Den) chronicles the tragic downward spiral of Gervaise Macquart, a good-natured and hardworking laundress who slides into alcoholism and despair. After her lover abandons her an... SEE MORE