Alexis Zorba, the hero of this novel by NIkos Kazantzakis, author of The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, is a Greek workman who accompanies the narrator to Crete. Zorba is a figure created on a huge scale: his years have not dimmed the flame by which he lives, the gusto with which he responds to all that life offers him, whether he is supervising laborers at a mine, coping with mad monks in a mountain monastary, embellishing the tales of this past adventures, or making love.

Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the truly memorable creations of literature－a character in the greater tradtion of Sinbad the Sailor, Falstaff, and Sancho Panza－and the book as a modern classic bursting with wit, fantasy, and the joy of life.