Le Ventre de Paris

Le Ventre de Paris [lə vɑ̃tʁ də paʁi] (1873) is the third novel in French writer Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart.

Les Halles, rebuilt in cast iron and glass during the Second Empire was a landmark of modernity in the city, the wholesale and retail center of a thriving food industry.

Although Zola had yet to hone his mastery of working-class speech and idioms displayed to such good effect in L'Assommoir, the novel conveys a powerful atmosphere of life in the great market halls and of working class suffering.

Throughout the book, the painter Claude Lantier, a relative of the Macquarts and later the protagonist of L'Œuvre (1886) - shows up to provide a semi-authorial commentary, playing the role of chorus.

Le ventre de Paris was originally translated into English by Henry Vizetelly and published in 1888 under the title Fat and Thin.