Celebrity Graveland

April 02, 1840 – September 29, 1902

French author, journalist and playwright, Émile Zola, is widely regarded as the preeminent writer in the Naturalism movement in literature. With more than 30 works to his credit, Zola was one of the most prominent writers of his time. A large percentage of his books centered around multiple generations of a single family living in Napoleon III’s France.

His naturalistic portrayals of common people and his negative depictions of real-life political figures led Zola to a life of activism in addition to his writing. He became an outspoken proponent of the liberalization of France and his vocal critiques gained him a lot of enemies in the public sphere.

He was tried for criminal libel and forced to flee to England for a time.

And he may or may not have been murdered.

In response to an 1894 fraudulent court martial and the ensuing cover up, Zola published an open letter to the president calling out the highest levels of the French military entitled J’accuse….! As expected, Zola was prosecuted for libel, which allowed new evidence in the court martial to come to light. The so-called “Dreyfuss Affair” remained a major point of controversy in France for years.

Zola was convicted while in exile in England as the court martial case made it all the way to the French Supreme Court. The original ruling was eventually annulled and Zola returned home and was granted amnesty.

There were multiple attempts on Zola’s life thanks in part to the people and organizations he angered with his novels and other publications. When he died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty chimney vent, suspicions swirled that foul play was involved. For more than 50 years after his death, investigations failed to find proof he was murdered, but the cases were never officially solved.

Zola was originally buried in Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, but – as was becoming a Paris tradition – was reinterred in the The Panthéon a relatively short time later.

Burial

The Panthéon – Paris, FRANCE

Specific Location

Crypt XXIV; Émile is interred within the same crypt as Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. His crypt is on the right.

This entry was posted on May 6, 2024 at 8:19 am and is filed under The Pantheon with tags The Pantheon, Writers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.