Zorba the Greek

This classic novel, the basis for the Oscar-winning 1964 film of the same name, vividly portrays the complex and multifaceted friendship between a young Greek intellectual and Alexis Zorba, a sixty-year-old swashbuckling Romanian-born Greek whose bullish charm and self-professed excellence as a chef, miner, and musician immediately draws the young man to hire him as a foreman in an ambitious new mining venture in Crete. Though the two men disagree on much, their… (more)

This classic novel, the basis for the Oscar-winning 1964 film of the same name, vividly portrays the complex and multifaceted friendship between a young Greek intellectual and Alexis Zorba, a sixty-year-old swashbuckling Romanian-born Greek whose bullish charm and self-professed excellence as a chef, miner, and musician immediately draws the young man to hire him as a foreman in an ambitious new mining venture in Crete. Though the two men disagree on much, their conversations will open the young man’s eyes to a world that bears little resemblance to the one he thinks he knows from his books. Suffused with the colorful atmosphere of the Mediterranean and the sly wisdom of its unforgettable title character, Zorba the Greek has found its way into the hearts of readers around the globe.