Based on his experiences with the infamous Dreyfus case, this powerful last novel by Emile Zola about the scape-goating of a Jewish schoolteacher is a chilling depiction of anti-Semitism fully embedded in European society and an eerie presentiment of the Holocaust that would sweep across the Continent only forty years later. But this is not the whole story, for Zola also brilliantly demonstrates how truth, though suppressed for a generation, slowly but inexorably comes to light through the dedication and perseverance of a few humble defenders, who remain unswerving in their demand for justice.