Novel
Germinal
Émile Zola · 1885
Synopsis
Étienne Lantier, dismissed from his job on the railways, arrives without work in the mining country of Montsou. He gets himself hired underground, at the Voreux pit, alongside the Maheu family, and discovers appalling working conditions. When the Company, citing the crisis, decides on a measure that amounts to lowering wages, Étienne urges the miners to strike.
Context
To prepare the book, the author stayed in Anzin from 23 February to 2 March 1884, during a miners' strike; the deputy Alfred Giard introduced him as his secretary. He went down the Renard pit and recorded in his notebooks the vocabulary of the trade, the wages and the customs of the miners' rows. The text appeared as a serial in the Gil Blas from November 1884 to February 1885, then in volume in March 1885; it is the thirteenth of the twenty Rougon-Macquart novels. At the writer's funeral, workers chanted “Germinal! Germinal!” as the procession passed.
Who it is for
More than seven hundred pages in paperback format; a crowd narrative centred on a family of miners, which can be read without knowing the other volumes of the cycle.
Prizes and reception
Brought to the screen several times, notably by Claude Berri in 1993; Gallimard keeps it in paperback in the Folio classique series.
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