Prolific Greek writer, whose works include essays, novels, poems, tragedies, travel books, and translations of such classics as Dante's The Divine Comedy and JW von Goethe's Faust. Like his hero, Odysseus, Kazantzakis lived most of his artistic life outside Greece - except for the years of World War II. “I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear,” Kazantzakis wrote in TODA RABA (1934). Several of the author's novels deal with the history and culture of his own country, and the mystical relationship between man and God. In 1957 he lost the Nobel Prize by a single vote to the French writer Albert Camus.
“Having seen that I was not capable of using all my resources in political action, I returned to my literary activity. There lay the the battlefield suited to my temperament. I wanted to make my novels the extension of my own father's struggle for liberty. But gradually, as I kept deepening my responsibility as a writer, the human problem came to overshadow political and social questions. All the political, social, and economic improvements, all the technical progress cannot have any regenerating significance, so long as our inner life remains as it is at present. The more the intelligence unveils and violates the secrets of Nature, he more the danger increases and the heart shrinks.” (From Nikos Kazantzakis by Helen Kazantzakis, 1968)
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Megalokastro, Ottoman Empire, now Iráklion, Crete, as the son of Michael Kazantzakis, a farmer and dealer of in animal feed, and his wife, the former Maria Christodoulzki. Kazantzakis was raised among peasants and although Kazantzakis left Crete as a young man, he returned to his homeland constantly in his writings. He attended the Franciscan School of the Holy Cross, Naxos, and the Gymnasium at Herakleion (1899-1902). Kazantzakis then studied four years at the University of Athens, becoming Doctor of Laws in 1906.
<p> From 1907 to 1909 Kazantzakis studied philosophy in Paris at the Collège de France under Henri Bergson. His first book,OPHIS KAI KRINO, was published in 1906. In the same year appeared his play XEMERÕNEI. Between the 1910s and 1930s Kazantzákis wrote dramas, verse and travel books, and travelled widely in China, Japan, Russia, England, Spain, and other countries. His first novel, Toda raba , was published in French when he was 51.
1907年至1909年，卡贊特扎吉斯在巴黎的法蘭西公學院學習哲學，師從昂利·柏格森。他的第一部作品《OPHIS KAI KRINO》出版於1906年。同年，劇作《XEMERÕNEI》問世。從20世紀初到20世紀三十年代，卡贊特扎吉斯創作了話劇，韻文和旅行書籍，並廣泛遊歷了中國，日本，俄羅斯，英國，西班牙等國。第一部小說《Toda raba》在他51歲的時候出版於法國。
Kazantzakis spent many years in public service. In 1919 he was appointed director general at the Greek Ministry of Public Welfare. By 1927, when Kazantzakis resigned from this post, he had been responsible for the feeding and eventual rescue of more than 150 000 people of Greek origin, who had been caught up in the civil war raging in the Caucasian region of the Soviet Union. Though never a member of the Communist party, Kazantzakis sympathized leftist movements in the early phase of his life and was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize later. However, after three journeys in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, he became disenchanted with the materialism of the Bolsheviks. The basis of his own philosophy, which contained elemests from Bergson, Marxism, Nietzsche, Christianity, and Buddism, Kazantzakis presented in SALVATORES DEI (1927), written in 1922-23 in Berlin. “We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life,” were his much quoted opening words in the book.
Kazantzakis's epic poem ODYSEIA (1938) continued the Homer's tale. Before WW II Kazantzakis settled on the island of Aegina, and in 1948 he moved to Antibes, southern France. After the war, he served as a minister in the Greek government of Aegina. In 1947-48 he worked for UNESCO. Kazantzákis died of leukemia on October 26, 1957, in Freiburg im Breisgau, in Germany. Helen Kazantzakis, his wife, tells in the author's biography that he always had as his traveling companion a miniature Dante, and Dante alone remained at his bedside until his last breath.
卡贊特扎吉斯的史詩作品《奧德賽》（1938）續寫了荷馬的傳說。第二次世界大戰前，卡贊特扎吉斯定居希臘Aegina島，1948年移居到法國南部的Antibes。戰後，他曾在Aegina的政府擔任部長。1947年至1948年他為聯合國教科文組織工作。1957年10月26日，卡贊特扎吉斯因白血病逝世於德國弗萊堡。他的妻子海倫·卡贊特扎吉斯在他的傳記寫到：旅途之中，他總是攜帶一幅但丁的小像作伴。直到他生命的最後一刻，也是但丁獨自陪伴在他的床邊。 <p><p> Although Kazantzakis wrote a number of his novels in French, his most celebrated works were composed in the colloquial language of the Cretan working classes. Zorba the Greek, his best-known novel, was made into a popular and highly successful movie and inspired the Broadway musical by Joseph Stein, John Kander, and Fred Ebb. The story focuses on the relationship of a writer and intellectual, modelled on Kazantzakis, and an uneducated man, Zorba, who drinks, works, loves and lives like a force of nature. His character has been seen as the personification of Henri Bergson's ideas of élan vital. He doesn't care about books, he values more experience and understanding than scholarly learning. The narrator meets Alexis Zorba in Pireus. He plans to reopen on the island of Crete an abandoned mine and Zorba becomes his foreman. Kazantzakis weaves the narrator's childhood memories and thoughts against the life and teaching of Zorbas. After a series of tragedies, failures and small victories, the narrator leaves Crete, but asks his friend to teach him to dance. "How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea." (from Zorba the Greek )
Freedom or Death was based on the Cretan revolt of 1889, one of the final rebellions against Turkish rule. One of the central characters is Captain Mikalis, who chooses rebellion instead of love, and dies in the middle of his cry, "Freedom or..."Kazantzakis shows also understanding of the Turkish culture in the character of Nuri bei, who commits suicide.
The Greek Passion was story about a group of villagers under Turkish domination, who re-enact the Passion.
《希臘式激情》則講述了一群在土耳其統治下的村民的故事，他們重新定義了“激情”。
The Last Temptation of Christ explored the theme of the battle between spirit and flesh. The book was banned by Vatican in 1954 and in 1955 Kazantzakis was excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church.The members of the Orthodox Church of America damned the work as extremely indecent and atheistic, after admitting that they hadn't read it and had based their case on the magazine articles. Kazantzakis presented Christ as an existential hero, a rebel against his divine mission until he is awakened by Judas, whom he calls his brother. Judas tries to same in Jerusalem, but his heroic struggle against God ends in failure. Martin Scorsese's film adaption from 1988 boosted the sale of the book.
Kazantzakis's major work was the enormous poetic work ODÌSSIA (Odyssey: A Modern Sequel), 33 333 lines long, which he wrote seven times and published in 1938. The poem was accused of being too revolutionary in vocabulary and diction. Odìssia manifested the author's deep knowledge of modern archeological and anthropological discoveries.
Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey by P. Prevelakis (1961);
Nikos Kazantzakis by H. Kazantzakis (1968);
Nikos Kazantzakis: La vie, son oeuvre by C. Janiaud-Lust(1970);
Kazantzakis and the Linguistic Revolution in Greek Literature by P. Bien (1972);
Nikos Kazantzakis by P. Bien (1972);
Nietzsche and Kazantzakis by BT McDonough (1978);
The Spiritual Odyssey of Nikos Kazantzakis, ed.by K. Friar (1979);
The Cretan Glance by MP Levitt (1980);
Tormented by Happiness by P. Bien (1982);
Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit by P. Bien (1988);
The Last Temptation of Hollywood by LW Poland (1988);
God's Struggler , ed.by Darren Middleton and Peter Bien (1996 );
Kazantzakis and God by Daniel A. Dombrowski (1997);
Creative Destruction: Nikos Kazantzakis and the Literature of Responsibility by Lewis Owens (2002);
Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit by Peter Bien (2006)
Selected works: 作品選集：
* OPHIS KAI KRINO, 1906 - Serpent and Lily (trans. by Theodora Vasils)
* PRÕTOMASTORAS, 1910
* SALVATORES DEI / ASKITIKÍ, 1927 - The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises (trans. by Kimon Friar)
* NIKEPHOROS PHÕKAS, 1927
* TAXIDEUONTAS, 1927
* CHRISTOS, 1928
* TI IDA STI RUSSIA, 1928 - Russia (trans. by Michael Antonakes and Thanasis Maskaleris)
* TODA RABA, 1934 - (trans. by Amy Mims)
* ISPANIA, 1937 - Spain (trans. by Amy Mims)
* ODYSEIA, 1938 - The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (trans. by Kimon Friar)
* IAPÕNIA-KINA, 1938 - Japan/China (trans. by George C. Pappageotes)
* ANGHLIA, 1941 - England
* IULIANOS, 1945
* KAPODISTRIAS, 1946
* VÍOS KAI POLITÍA TOY ALEXSI ZORBÁ, 1946 - Zorba the Greek (trans. by Carl Wildman) - Kerro minulle, Zorbas (suom. Vappu Roos) - film 1964, by Michael Cacoyannis, music by Mikis Theodorakis, starring Anthony Quinn.
* O KAPETÁN MIHÁILIS, 1953 - Freedom of Death (trans. by Jonathan Griffin)
* CHRISTOS XANASTAURÕNETAI, 1954 - The Geek Passion (trans. by Jonathan Griffin) / Christ Recrusified (trans. by Jonathan Griffin) - Ikuinen vaellus (suom. Juho Tervonen) - film film 1957, dir. by Jules Dassin, Melina Mercouri, Pierre Vaneck, Gert Fröbe, Grégoire Aslan, Teddy Bilis, Carl Möhner
* O TELEFTEOS PIRASMOS, 1955 - The Last Temptation of Christ (trans. by PA Bien) - see also Jose Saramago 's O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo , 1991 - Viimeinen kiusaus (suom. Elvi Sinervo) - film 1988, dir. by Martin Scorsese, script Paul Schrader.
"For many years I had the Kazantzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ under option. That was one I'd always intended to do. I was so glad that Marty [Scorsese] finally did it [1988] because: can you imagine what would have happened if a Jew had done that movie?" Sidney Lumet in Who the Devil Made It by Peter Bogdanocich (1998).
基督最後的誘惑（1955），英文版譯者帕·貝恩。1988年電影版由馬丁·史柯西斯執導，劇本創作：保羅·施拉德。“我想拍《基督最後的誘惑》已經很多年了，這是我一直打算做的一件事。得知是由馬丁（史柯西斯）執導的時候我真的非常高興，因為：如果這部電影被猶太人拍的話，你能想像到會發生什麼嗎？。Sidney Lumet in Who the Devil Made It by Peter Bogdanocich (1998).
* KUROS, 1955
* MELISSA, 1955
* OMIROU ILIADA, 1955
* THEATRO, 1955
* BOUDHAS, 1956 (trans. by Kimon Friar and Athena Dallis-Damis)
* SODOMA KAI GOMORRHA, 1956
* O FTOHOYLIS TOY THEOY, 1956 - Saint Francis (trans. by PA Bien) / God's Pauper (trans. by PA Bien) - Pyhä köyhyys (suom. Aaro Peromies, Pentti Saarikoski) o ftohoylis玩具theoy ， 1956年-聖方濟（ t rans.由壩b ien） /上帝的貧民（ t rans.由壩b ien） - py häkö yhyys（s u om.aa rope romies，p e ntti薩里科斯基）
* EPISTLES APO TI GALATIA, 1958 - partial tr。
* LE JARDIN DES ROCHERS, 1959 - The Rock Garden
* TERSTINES, 1960
* ANAPHORA STO GRECO, 1961 - Report to Greco (trans. by PA Bien) - Tilinteko El Grecolle (suom. Aarno Peromies)在STO照應希臘， 1961年-報告中，以希臘（ t rans.由壩b ien） - ti linteko下午gr ecolle（s u om.阿爾諾pe romies）
* TAXIDEUONTAS, 1961 - Journeying (trans. by Themi Vasils and Theodora Vasils)
* O MORIAS, 1961 - Journey to the Morea (trans. by F. A Reed) o morias ， 1961年-行程要M orea報告（ t rans.由樓蘆葦）
* ADERPHOPHADES, 1963 - The Fratricides trans. aderphophades ， 1963 -f ratricides轉運。 by Athena Gianakas Dallas) - Veljesviha (suom. Kyllikki Villa)由雅典娜gianakas達拉斯） -v eljesviha（ s uom.屈利基別墅）
* Three Plays, 1964 (trans. by Athena Gianakas Dallas)
* ADELPHOPHADES, 1965
* TETRAKOSIA GRAMMATA TOY KAZANTZAKIS STON PREVELAKI, 1965
* SYMPOSION, 1971 - Symposium (trans. by Theodora Vasils and Themi Vasils)
* The Suffering God, 1978 (trans. by Philip Ramp and Kathrina Anghelaki Rooke)
* Alexander the Great, 1981 (trans. by Theodora Vasils)
* At the Palace of Knossos, 1988 (translated by Themi Vasils and Theodora Vasils)
Nikos Kazantzakis