GerminalBy: mile Zola Considered by Andr Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, mile Zola's Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty of a mining community in northern France tienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Compelled to take a back breakin job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry and in