Belly of Paris

Emile Zola is one of the pillars of world realistic literature, the founder and theorist of naturalism, a keen researcher of everyday life, a passionate human rights activist and publicist. His most famous work is the epochal twenty-volume cycle “Rugon-Macquart”, revealing to the reader an endless panorama of human vices and virtues in the scenery of the Second Empire. This is a genuine encyclopedia of life in Paris and the French provinces using the example of several generations of one family. "The Belly of Paris" is one of the most famous novels in the series. Written in 1873 and published in Russia in the same year in an anonymous translation, the novel actually marked the beginning of Emile Zola's popularity among Russian readers. The political upheaval that brought Napoleon III to power tragically changed the fate of many people. The modest schoolteacher Florent, who selflessly raises his younger brother, is mistakenly mistaken for an opponent of the new regime during the riots and sentenced to hard labor. A few years later, risking his life, Florent escapes from hard labor and arrives in Paris, in the middle of which lies the huge Central Market, the Belly of Paris, the source and symbol of satiety and contentment - the main virtues of the Second Empire, which is suspicious of hungry idealists...