In the spring of 1947, while Greece is torn apart by the Civil War, Nikos Kazantzakis jointly nominates himself with Angelos Sikelianos for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His nomination rallies the conservative establishment of the time, which sees in the Cretan writer one of its biggest enemies. All means, both fair and foul, are mobilized against him in order to prevent his award. On the other hand, Kazantzakis spends a decade striving alone to win the Nobel, facing gods and demons.
Personal testimonies, letters, articles, excerpts from books, and documentary evidence create a colorful puzzle that could form an imaginative novel, but is nothing but historical truth. In this book, we encounter personalities such as Palamas, Kavafis, Seferis, Elytis, and Ritsos, as well as famous Nobel laureates like Hesse, Gide, Eliot, Hemingway, and Camus. Above all, however, we witness the odyssey of the intellectual and political world of Greece in the 20th century, which passed through the straits of contradictions and shaped the conditions of our times.
