Description
'He loved power for power's sake . . . He was without question the greatest of the Rougons.' His Excellency Eugene Rougon (1876) is the sixth novel in Zola's twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle. A political novel set in the corridors of power and in the upper echelons of French Second Empire society, including the Imperial court, it focuses on the fluctuating fortunes of the authoritarian Eugene Rougon, the 'vice-Emperor'. But it is more than just a chronicle. It plunges the reader into the essential dynamics of the political: the rivalries, the scheming, the jockeying for position, the ups and downs, the play of interests, the lobbying and gossip, the patronage and string-pulling, the bribery and blackmail, and, especially, the manipulation of language for political purposes. The novel's themes-especially its treatment of political discourse-have remarkable contemporary resonance. His Excellency Eugene Rougon is about politics everywhere.
About the Author
Brian Nelson is Emeritus Professor (French Studies and Translation Studies) at Monash University, Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has been editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies since 2002. His publications include The Cambridge Companion to Zola (CUP, 20017), Zola and the Bourgeoisie (Palgrave Macmillan, 1983), and translations of Earth, The Fortune of the Rougons, The Belly of Paris, The Kill, Pot Luck, and The Ladies' Paradise for Oxford World's Classics. He was awarded the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Translation in 2015. His most recent critical work is The Cambridge Introduction to French Literature (CUP, 2015).
Reviews
It is easy to savor certain installments in isolation [...] But to read through the Rougon-Macquart in Oxford's fine new translations - fourteen of the twenty volumes retranslated since 2000, seven in the last four years - is to see the mosaic that only Zola's full scheme makes possible. * Aaron Matz, The New York Review of Books *
Im going to celebrate the 21st century with a re-read of His Excellency Eugene Rougon. * Swiftly Tilting Planet *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198748250
Author Emile Zola
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 264g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 129mm * 18mm
About the Author
Brian Nelson is Emeritus Professor (French Studies and Translation Studies) at Monash University, Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has been editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies since 2002. His publications include The Cambridge Companion to Zola (CUP, 20017), Zola and the Bourgeoisie (Palgrave Macmillan, 1983), and translations of Earth, The Fortune of the Rougons, The Belly of Paris, The Kill, Pot Luck, and The Ladies' Paradise for Oxford World's Classics. He was awarded the New South Wales Premier's Prize for Translation in 2015. His most recent critical work is The Cambridge Introduction to French Literature (CUP, 2015).
Reviews
It is easy to savor certain installments in isolation [...] But to read through the Rougon-Macquart in Oxford's fine new translations - fourteen of the twenty volumes retranslated since 2000, seven in the last four years - is to see the mosaic that only Zola's full scheme makes possible. * Aaron Matz, The New York Review of Books *
Im going to celebrate the 21st century with a re-read of His Excellency Eugene Rougon. * Swiftly Tilting Planet *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198748250
Author Emile Zola
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 264g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 129mm * 18mm
