Nana

Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Theatre des Varietes. She soon rises from the streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of her day. Rich men, Comtes and Marquises fall at her feet, great ladies try to emulate her appearance, lovers even kill themselves for her. Nana's hedonistic appetite for luxury and decadent pleasures knows no bounds – until, eventually, it consumes her. Nana provoked outrage on its publication in 1880, with its heroine damned as 'the most crude and bestial sort of whore'. Yet the rich atmosphere and luminous language of this 'poem of male desire' transform Nana into an almost mythical figure: a destructive force preying on a corrupt, decaying society.

George Holden's lively translation is accompanied by an introduction that reveals Nana as a key work in Zola's Rougon-Marcquart cycle, representing a powerful critique of France's Second Empire.

About the Author

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction. His principal work, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a panorama of mid-19th century French life, in a cycle of 20 novels which Zola wrote over a period of 22 years.