Kazantzakis knew that he could help restore Greece to her former glory.Īfter finishing school, he set out from his Greek homeland to drink up the multicultural world.
He had a sense that Greece was falling behind in a world where change and industrialization signified the stability of a nation. Kazantzakis wanted to help Greece overcome her problems, so he set out to educate himself in Athens and get involved in politics. The Turks were invading Greece and civil unrest plagued his homeland. He came into the world during a very turbulent time in Greek history. Nikos Kazantzakis, the prolific writer of great works such as Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, was born on the island of Crete in 1883. Athos since Nikos Kazantzakis visited eighty-seven years earlier. Here on this quiet peninsula, one can sit in peace and lose themself in true serenity. They were built this way in order to withstand piratical raids during the Crusades, which threatened to strip them of gold and religious relics. The monasteries look like medieval castles as one approaches them. Considered to be the Virgin Mary’s private garden, no other women are allowed to step foot upon its shores. It is home to twenty ruling monasteries and some 2,000 monks. Athos juts out like a crooked finger into the azure Aegean from the Greek mainland. I am on the Holy Mount, and am anxious to begin writing.
The sun has just extinguished itself into the sea and the warm night settles down on the monastery like a smooth blanket. As the thick reinforced door shuts behind me, closing out the secular world, I listen to the silence and breathe in the smell of pine and ocean.
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