Zorba the Greek is the first novel of Cretan author Nikos Kazantzakis. Published in 1946, the story chronicles the narrator’s friendship with Zorba, who accompanies the narrator on an extended trip to Crete. The novel revolves around their disparate personalities and perspectives; while the narrator is a young, bookish intellectual with a penchant for abstract thought, Zorba is a sixty-year-old man with an enthusiastic appreciation for life and authentic lived experience, something the narrator yearns to attain for himself.