Émile Zola

Émile Zola was a nineteenth-century French novelist and journalist, the central figure of literary naturalism.

His twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle depicted heredity and environment shaping a family across generations.

Zola is remembered equally for "J'accuse," his open letter defending Alfred Dreyfus against antisemitic persecution—a landmark of engaged intellectualism that made his name synonymous with writers speaking truth to power.