Zola's mining epic ‘Germinal’ to provide scholarship of four Soma victims’ children

ISTANBUL

Re-enactment of a scene from Germinal.

Emile Zola’s classic 19th-century novel about miners in northern France, “Germinal,” has become a hope for four female students who lost their fathers in the Soma mine disaster on May 13.

One of the publishers of the novel in Turkey, Yordam Kitap, had announced that the money received from sales would be donated to the education of children of the 301 workers who lost their lives.

Officials from the publishing house said they had collected enough money from the sales to provide a three-year scholarship for four students. They added that the length of the scholarship would be extended, but added that the amount depended on the revenue generated from the book sales. The four students who will receive the scholarship received assistance from the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions’ (DİSK) mining branch Dev-Maden-Sen.

Following the disaster, the publishing house had announced their project to donate the book’s income, adding that the accident occurred at a time when the book was being prepared to go to print.

“The disaster that resulted in the death of 301 workers [according to official figures] was expected to occur [and] the safety conditions of the workers were not so different than those depicted in ‘Germinal,’” their statement read.

The disaster has once again drawn attention to accidents concerning labor workers in the country, which continues to claim dozens of lives every year due to the lack of safety regulations.