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Germinal

Considered by Andre Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, “Germinal” is a brutal depiction of the poverty and wretchedness of a mining community in northern France under the second empire. At the centre of the novel is Etienne Lantier, a handsome 21 year-old mechanic, intelligent but with little education and a dangerous predisposition to murderous, alcoholic rage. “Germinal” tells the parallel story of Etienne`s refusal to accept what he appears destined to become, and of the miners` difficult decision to strike in order to fight for a better standard of life.