Children\u2019s author and broadcaster Michael Rosen chooses \u00c9mile Zola as a history hero <\/p>
\u00c9mile Zola was a French novelist, playwright and journalist. He also played a key role in the exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer wrongly convicted of treason. Zola won acclaim for his 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart<\/em> series of novels about the history of a family during the reign of Napoleon III. He died in Paris, aged 62, from carbon monoxide poisoning, thought to have been caused by an improperly vented chimney.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> In my school sixth form, when we read short stories in French. I had a wonderful French teacher, who introduced us to Zola\u2019s L\u2019Attaque du Moulin<\/em>. One of the joys of studying a foreign language is the pleasure you get when you suddenly discover that you can read an adult story by a foreign writer in their own tongue. It\u2019s like discovering a new set of clothes that you never knew you had!<\/p>\n His family had Italian origins, so he felt rather despised as an outsider \u2013 at this time the French had a kind of racist word for people from the southern Mediterranean: \u201cm\u00e9teque\u201d. And I think it was this that made him so desperate to get France\u2019s highest award, the Legion of Honour. You get a sense of him thinking: \u201cAren\u2019t I the most popular writer in France \u2013 don\u2019t I deserve this?\u201d He was also a man with a social conscience, advocating workers\u2019 control of industry.<\/p>\n The stance he took during the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s. At this moment of high crisis in France, Zola was a resolute supporter of Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer of Jewish descent who was imprisoned on Devil\u2019s Island after being wrongly convicted of treason. The affair split France down the middle and a lot of French people proudly called themselves anti-Semites \u2013 newspapers even carried the words \u201cthe anti-Semitic newspaper\u201d on their mastheads.<\/p>\n On the podcast | Simon Sebag Montefiore describes some of history\u2019s most fascinating letters:<\/strong><\/p> The famous \u201cJ\u2019Accuse\u201d letter he wrote \u2013 published on the front page of a prominent Paris newspaper in 1898 \u2013 in which he accused the French army and government of obstruction of justice and anti-Semitism. Doing so endangered his career, and indeed his life. Zola exposed the conspiracy between the government and the military, incurring the wrath of many powerful people. He was found guilty of libel, removed from the Legion of Honour, and forced to flee to England, staying in London for nearly a year (where, incidentally, he was appalled by the food). In the end, he returned to France and was pardoned after it emerged that Dreyfus was indeed innocent.<\/p>\n Some might see him as a bigamist because he was in effect married to two women: his wife and his mistress, the mother of his children. But the trio tried to resolve an irresolvable situation in a modern way.<\/p>\n I\u2019d ask him if he was really prepared to go to prison over his J\u2019Accuse letter.<\/p>\n Michael Rosen is a children\u2019s author, poet and broadcaster. His latest book is Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS<\/em> (Ebury, 2021)<\/strong><\/p>\n This content first appeared in the December 2021 issue of BBC History Magazine<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWhen did you first hear about Zola?<\/h3>\n
What kind of person was he?<\/h3>\n
What made him a hero?<\/h3>\n
What was Zola\u2019s finest hour?<\/h3>\n
Is there anything that you don\u2019t particularly admire about him?<\/h3>\n
What would you ask Zola if you could meet him?<\/h3>\n