Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis married Galatea Alexiou in 1911. The couple stayed together for 15 years before they ultimately divorced.

In 1945, Kazantzakis remarried, this time to Eleni Samiou, a young Athenian woman with whom Kazantzakis had had a long-running affair and with whom he had traveled extensively during his prior marriage. Eleni Kazantzakis would later help her husband to painstakingly rewrite and edit manuscripts. After his death, she would write his biography.

He died on 26 October 1957, in Freiburg, Germany, due to leukemia. His body was taken to Iraklion for burial within the city wall of Heraklion, close to the Chania Gate.

Nikos Kazantzakis was born on 18 February 1883, Heraklion, Crete, to Michael Kazantzakis, a farmer and animal feed dealer, and Maria Kazantzakis. He was the first-born of four children. His other siblings were Anastasia, Eleni and Yiorgos; Yiorgos died in infancy.

In 1902, Kazantzakis left Crete to study law at the University of Athens, a degree which he would complete in four years.

In 1906, Kazantzakis published his first book, ‘Ophis kai krino’, and had his first play, ‘Xemeronei’, staged.

In 1907, having completed his law degree, Kazantzakis moved to Paris to study philosophy, finding great inspiration in the work of Henri Bergson.

In 1909, Kazantzakis completed his philosophy degree with a dissertation on Nietzsche titled, ‘Friedrich Nietzsche on the Philosophy of Right and the State.’ Upon completing his degree, he returned to Greece.

Beginning in 1910 and continuing into the 1930s, Kazantzakis traveled extensively, spending time in China, Japan, Russia, England and Spain. During this period and later in life, he would also spend significant time in Cypus, Egypt, Mount Sinai, Czechoslovakia, Berlin and Nice, France.

In 1919, Kazantzakis was appointed as the director general of the Greek Ministry of Public Welfare, a post he held for only one year before resigning. During his service, he helped feed and rescue over 150,000 Greek-born war victims.

In 1927, Kazantzakis completed ‘Askitki’, which today is widely considered to have been his greatest work of philosophy, drawing on elements from Bergson, Marx and Nietzsche, as well as Christianity and Buddhism.

In 1938, the epic poem ‘Odisseas’ was published, though its English-language translation, ‘The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel’, was not published until twenty years later, following Kazantzakis’ death.

In 1946, Kazantzakis published ‘Zorba the Greek’, though it was not translated into English until six years later. The novel would eventually be adapted as a film, a ballet and a musical, all after Kazantzakis’ death.