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  • Published: 31 October 1972
  • ISBN: 9780141906591
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 480

Nana




One of the greatest of the Rougon-Macquart series, Zola's prostitute represents the destructiveness of a corrupt and decaying society

Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Théâtre des Variétés. 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', yes the language of the novel makes Nana almost a mythical figure: a destructive force preying on a corrupt society.

  • Published: 31 October 1972
  • ISBN: 9780141906591
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 480

Other books in the series

On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Emile Zola

Émile 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.

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