Another recent addition to my elite list is the master best known for Zorba the Greek, though the protagonist’s name was rendered into English incorrectly – it should be Zorbas.
Inclined toward big, knotty books, Kazantakis tackled the upheavals of post-World War II Greek culture, a volatile realm even before The Last Temptation of Christ, his most controversial novel.
My favorite, though, is The Fratricides, centered on the struggles of an out-of-favor Orthodox priest in an impoverished village as he and it are drawn into the crushing vise of civil war itself.
As I’ve welcomed Greek perspectives into my awareness – befitting the element in my novel What’s Left – I appreciate his contention that Greece is neither West nor East, a place where Eastern instinct is reconciled with Western reason. Or, in his novels, logic is pitted against emotion.
I’m in no position to argue whether his language reflects the peasants he met in his travels around Greece, but in translation, it feels large-boned and sure-footed.
Jnana's Red Barn 