Recommendations from our site
“This is a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, who is the serious modern Greek novelist. If you’re in Greece on holiday, and you have good lighting at night and no young children, this is the book to read. It’s thought-provoking and rich in descriptions. It recreates the moment of the Cretan revolution, which came later. There was a Muslim population on Crete, all of it Greek speaking, none of whom had ever been to what today we call Turkey. So it’s heroic and also tragic, both at the same time. The story centers around the friendship of two people—a Greek community leader, who is a sort of bandit, and one of the Ottoman rulers. They had been friends, but slowly the friendship becomes impossible, because they cannot get past these mass mobilizations on both sides.” Read more...
The best books on Modern Greek History
Yanni Kotsonis, Historian
