The life of Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of "Zorba" and "The Last Temptation," was as colorful and eventful as his imagination. And nowhere is his life revealed more or more astonishingly than in his letters.

Edited and translated by his lifelong friend, Peter Bien, this is the most comprehensive collection of Kazantzakis's letters in any language. As one of the most significant Greek writers of the twentieth century, Kazantzakis (1883–1957) participated in or witnessed some of the most extraordinary events of his time, including the two World Wars and the Spanish and Greek Civil Wars.

As a foreign envoy, official in several Greek governments, and a political and artistic exile, he led an endlessly nomadic life, living in France, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Soviet Union, and England. He attended the Versailles Peace Conference, witnessed the tenth anniversary event of the Bolshevik Revolution, interviewed Mussolini and Franco, and briefly served as a minister of the Greek government, all while producing an endless volume of novels, poems, plays, travel writings, autobiographies, and translations.

The letters collected here touch on almost every aspect of Kazantzakis's rich and tumultuous life and reveal the genius of a man who was deeply connected to the artistic, spiritual, and political events of his time.