Hailed as "my spiritual brother" by Albert Schweitzer, and oft-compared to fellow giants Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Nikos Kazantzakis occupies a unique place among the literary notables of our time. Kazantzakis was born in1883 at the height of his country's last bloody revolts to break free of Ottoman oppression. As a child, he knew the sound and smell of fear and the sight of rampaging soldiers on the streets outside his window. He knew the blood-curdling sound of people being slaughtered, and the sight of his father standing guard at the door, his knife at the ready; knew, too, the sound of...