Zorba the Greek

Zorba the Greek is the famous novel by Nikos Kazantzakis.

Years ago, a professor of philosophy asked me an impossible question: “If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, and could only have one book with you, which book would it be?” … I insisted that one book was not enough: I could take no fewer than twenty books.

At last, we compromised at ten. These ten favorite books were (and still are): Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (by Goethe); Narcissus and Goldmund (Hesse); Walden (Thoreau); Leaves of Grass (Whitman); the Odyssey (Homer); Wolf Solent (Powys); The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky); Don Quixote (Cervantes); The Art of Loving (Fromm); and Summerhill (Neill).

Two months after that assignment I walked into a bookstore and discovered a book that leaped to the top of that list. Since then, I have read the book more than 40 times. The author is Nikos Kazantzakis and the novel is titled Zorba the Greek. The novel, part fiction and part truth, is based on Kazantzakis’s actual experiences with his friend and mentor, Georgios Zorbas.

Zorba the Greek, about the book

“Probably one of the first novels I have read a long time ago, which gave me a deep insight into life and the we way we live it, namely wrongly!

Just as Kazantzakis intended that character, Zorba steps out of the book, knocks you about a bit, questions your answers and teaches you a bit about life. About sadness and happines, cruelty and kindness, about a life not always lived the right way, but surely a life lived intensly!

You will dread the moment of the last page, you will not want Zorba to leave, but at the end you will walk out there in the old world seeing it with new eyes and try to be: Zorba – the Greek!” Review published at Amazon by an anonymous reader.

More about Zorba The Greek:

• Buy the book “Zorba the Greek” at Amazon