Nana
Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Emile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series. Nana tells the story of Nana Coupeau's rise from streetwalker to high-class cocotte during the last three years of the French Second Empire. The novel opens with a night at the Theatre des Varietes. Nana is 15 years old. Zola describes in detail the performance of La blonde Venus, a fictional operetta modelled after Offenbach's La belle Helene, in which Nana is cast as the lead.