Nana opens in 1867, the year of the World Fair, when Paris, thronged by a cosmopolitan elite, was the perfect target for Zola’s scathing denunciation of hypocrisy and fin-de-sieclé moral corruption. In this new translation, the fate of Nana – ”the Helen of Troy of the second Empire, and daughter of the laundress in LA’ssommoir” is now rendered in racy, stylish English.