Ho kapetan Michalēs

by Nikos Kazantzakis

Freedom and Death is Kazantzakis's modern Iliad. The context is Crete in the late nineteenth century, the epic struggle between Greeks and Turks, between Chrisianity and Islam. A new uprising takes place to rival those of 1854, 1866 and 1878, and the island is thrown into confusion yet again. In the village of Megalokastro a Cretan resistance fighter, Captain Michales, is matched by the Turkish bey, his blood-brother. The life of the local community continues shakily, but is disrupted by explosions of violence.