Émile Zola

Émile Zola (2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) full name Émile-Édouard-Charles-Antoine Zola, was a French writer, critic, and political activist. His beliefs of naturalism, which underlie his monumental 20-novel series Les Rougon-Macquart, and his engagement in the Dreyfus Affair through his famous open letter "J'accuse," made him renowned.

Not only was Zola regarded as one of Europe's best writers, but he was also regarded as a man of action—a defender of truth and justice, a champion of the poor and oppressed. At his burial, Anatole France eulogized him as not simply a brilliant man, but "a moment in the human conscience," and hundreds of mourners, both rich and poor, lined the streets to applaud the passing casket. In 1901 and 1902, Zola was respectively nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for the first and second times.