Kazantzakis, Nikos

Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Megalokastro (present-day Heraklion) in Crete, which was still under Ottoman rule at the time. His parents were farmers. When the Ottomans were ousted in 1897, the family fled to Naxos where the young Kazantzakis was educated at a Franciscan school. After upper-secondary school in Heraklion he went on to study law in Athens, graduating in 1906. He then studied philosophy at the Collège de France in Paris where Henri Bergson lectured at the time and became a major influence. Other influences include Nietzsche, Lenin, Buddha, Marx and Christ.