Sunday Feature: Zola in Norwood

Michael Rosen explores the political, literary and personal tensions in Zola's life during his 11-month exile in Britain as he fled a prison sentence in France. During his stay, he wrote a novel, Fecondite, a ghost story, many letters and a memoir, between going on regular cycling trips and taking hundreds of photos of the new suburbs in Surrey and Crystal Palace. Michael follows in Zola's footsteps from the Gare du Nord in Paris to London's Victoria station and to Zola's places of residence. He discovers contrasting views of Zola in the press and examines his literary trajectory at the end of his life. Anton Lesser and Harriet Walter are the voices of Emile and Alexandrine Zola