Nikos Kazantzakis was born in 1883 in Greece. He was educated in his hometown and in 1906 received a doctorate in judicial science. He then studied political science at the College of France and went to war against the Ottoman Turks. After the formation of the new Greece, he worked for a while and was a UNESCO representative in Paris. He entered into a critical dialogue with the Catholic Church in the novel "The Crucified Christ" and rebuked the Church with the novel "The Last Temptation of Christ". In the novel "Freedom or Death" he immortalized the bitter memories of the Greeks during the Ottoman rule. He was in search of human meaning, and his masterpiece depicts the Greek Zorba novel of human remains on the line of Eastern mysticism and Western operatic life.
Kazantzakis died in 1956 of leukemia in a trip to China. His body was taken to his hometown and buried there.
One of his most notable works is the Greek Zorba. In this book, two male characters, one a young man and a book reader, a mystical discovery and intimacy, and the other a man who makes life meaningful. Greek Zorba means a Greek man who is on the border between Eastern mysticism and Western pragmatism.
Kazantzakis says:
"Every human being needs a little bit of insanity, or he won't dare to break his ropes and be released."