Letter from Émile Zola to Narcís Oller

Date: 1885

Archive: Municipal Archive of Barcelona

Document type: Textual

Reference code: CAT-AHCB-AHCB3-301-19/C59-1

Link to the online document

Description: Émile Zola thanks Narcís Oller for the enthusiastic words he addressed to him on the occasion of his work Germinal (published that same year) and promises him that he will give Albert Savine a letter that will serve as a preface to his French edition of “La Papallona”.
Narcís Oller (Valls 1846-Barcelona 1930) is the great referent of Catalan novels of the late 19th century. Already in his time he achieved great fame at European level, comparable to Àngel Guimerà and Jacint Verdaguer in their respective genres. From an early romantic style, he gradually moved towards naturalism, a style in vogue at the time of which Émile Zola was the great founder and reference. However, sometimes they wanted to emphasize the differences between the French author and Oller, who despite using elements of naturalism does not apply its ideological basis. “The Butterfly” (1882) was his first great success and was translated into several languages, with a foreword by Zola himself in his French edition.
Narcís Oller’s correspondence, made up of almost 5,000 letters, shows the writer’s numerous relationships with the European literary and cultural world. You can find missives from French, German, Czech, Russian and Swedish authors and translators, such as Alexander Bisson, Johannes Fastenrath, Isaac Pavlovski, Albert Savine or Zola himself, as well as from Spanish authors such as Pardo Bazán, Pérez Galdós or Unamuno, among others.

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