On September 29, 1902, the French famous writer Emile Zola passed away. The famous French novelist, Emil Zola, was born in Paris in 1840. He was the founder of Naturalism school and had an extraordinary ability in showing social and individual situations, modes and courses.

In the gruesome novel Thérèse Raquin (1867), he put his “scientific” theories of the determination of character by heredity and environment into practice for the first time. These ideas established him as the founder of naturalism in literature. In 1870 he began the ambitious project for which he is best known, the Rougon-Macquart Cycle (1871-93), a sequence of 20 novels documenting French life through the lives of the violent Rougon family and the passive Macquarts.

He is also notable for his involvement in the Alfred Dreyfus affair, especially for his open letter, “J’accuse” (1898), denouncing the French army general staff. He died under suspicious circumstances, overcome by carbon-monoxide fumes in his sleep.