The selected letters of Nikos Kazantzakis / edited and translated by Peter Bien.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kazantzakis, Nikos, 1883-1957.

Contributor:

Bien, Peter.

Series:

Princeton modern Greek studies.

Princeton modern Greek studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authors, Greek (Modern)--20th century--Correspondence.

Authors, Greek (Modern).

Kazantzakis, Nikos, 1883-1957--Correspondence.

Kazantzakis, Nikos.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (905 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The life of Nikos Kazantzakis--the author of Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ--was as colorful and eventful as his fiction. And nowhere is his life revealed more fully or surprisingly than in his letters. Edited and translated by Kazantzakis scholar Peter Bien, this is the most comprehensive selection of Kazantzakis's letters in any language. One of the most important Greek writers of the twentieth century, Kazantzakis (1883-1957) participated in or witnessed some of the most extraordinary events of his times, including both world wars and the Spanish and Greek civil wars. As a foreign correspondent, an official in several Greek governments, and a political and artistic exile, he led a relentlessly nomadic existence, living in France, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Soviet Union, and England. He visited the Versailles Peace Conference, attended the tenth-anniversary celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution, interviewed Mussolini and Franco, and briefly served as a Greek cabinet minister--all the while producing a stream of novels, poems, plays, travel writing, autobiography, and translations. The letters collected here touch on almost every aspect of Kazantzakis's rich and tumultuous life, and show the genius of a man who was deeply attuned to the artistic, intellectual, and political events of his times.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction / Bien, Peter

Chronology

The Letters

I. At Law School in Athens

II. Pursuing Graduate Studies in Paris

III. Politically Active in Greece

IV. Fleeing Greece; Resident in Austria, Germany, Italy

V. Meets Eleni Samiou; Begins Odyssey; Divorces Galatea; Travels to Soviet Union

VI. Resident Almost Eighteen Months in the Soviet Union

VII. Trying to Make a Career Outside of Greece, Especially in Spain

VIII. Back in Greece, Having Failed Elsewhere; Traveling in Far East; Odyssey Completed and Published; Visit to England

IX. Confined to Aegina during the German Occupation; Writes Zorba and Many Plays; Begins to Translate Homer's Iliad

X. In Athens during Round Two of the Civil War; Resolves to Help Liberated Greece via Political Action; Briefly a Cabinet Minister; Marries Eleni Samiou

XI. Final Exile: Resides Briefly in England, Then in France; Writes Final Novels and Plays; Travels to China

References Cited

Index

Notes:

Translated from the Greek.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613339805

9781283339803

1283339803

9781400840120

1400840120

OCLC:

767502418