Germinal is the thirteenth novel in ?mile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola's masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, a novel with an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s. Published and translated in over one hundred countries. The novel had also five film adaptations and two television productions.