Nana

Nana, novel by Émile Zola, published in French in 1880. Nana is one of a sequence of 20 novels that constitute Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle.

The title character grows up in the slums of Paris. She has a brief career as an untalented actress before finding success as a courtesan. Although vulgar and ignorant, she has a destructive sexuality that attracts many rich and powerful men. Cruelly contemptuous of her lovers’ emotions, Nana wastes their fortunes, driving many of them to ruin and even suicide.