The Unwanted Dead by Yorgos Pratanos

 


“My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.” - Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 - 1957)

The Unwanted Dead by Yorgos Pratanos is a novel of passion, a fierce novel, a story based on actual events in November, 1957 following the death of the great Nikos Kazantzakis, author of such works as Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ and Saint Francis.

The tale features three main characters -



Helen (Greek: Eleni Samiou) - widow of Nikos Kazantzakis. The above photo shows Helen at age 21 in 1924, the year when she first met Nikos, her soulmate and eventual husband.



Freddy Germanos - young journalist (Freddy is 23 in 1957) covering the funeral and dealing with Helen and interviewing others, including a knowledgeable older man from Crete by the name of Kritikaros. The above photo is Freddy Germanos in his later years when he became the most beloved journalist in all of Greece.



Kritikaros - Cretan gentleman serving as representative of all the men and women from his island who knew and loved and supported Nikos Kazantzakis. As Yorgos Pratanos points out, Kritikaros is the only fictionalized main character in the novel, a character he created as a tribute to the honorable people of Crete.

On the opening pages of the novel, we find Helen weeping at the bedside of her dear Nikos who has just died at age 74 in Freilburg, West Germany. Helen knows it has always been Nikos' wish to be buried in his homeland of Crete thus she also knows she must take the necessary steps to follow her husband's wishes.

Ah, a return to Greece with her husband's corpse. "She had envisioned it quite differently: him, standing tall and smiling, with the Nobel Prize tucked proudly in his luggage, his gift to the Greek people. But that was not their reality; they had been persecuted relentlessly by the Church, the Palace, and the para-state organizations of Greece long after they had left, eleven years before. The attacks had been fierce, even from Nikos' "colleagues"."

It can not be stated too forcefully: The Unwanted Dead is a fiery, impassioned novel fueled, in part, by author Yorgos Pratanos' own relationship to not only the Kazantzakis family and Greek history but also the spirit of Nikos Kazantzakis himself. As Mr. Pratanos explained to an interviewer, "I have this feeling that the idea of writing about Kazantzakis was inside my head a long time ago, before I ever realized I wanted to do it...I've been a Kazantzakis enthusiast since I was twelve, when I read Zorba the Greek for the very first time."

Yorgos Pratanos proceeds to write his novel but there is a critical question he's forced to address: how to connect Helen to the unfolding events in Athens in the days following the death of the great author. Then Mr. Pratanos had his eureka moment: the link could be none other than prolific journalist and writer Freddy Germanos who made his first significant coverage reporting on Kazantzakis's funeral. And since Freddy brings to light all the underhanded maneuvers and deceitful manipulations conducted by the various Greek political, religious and cultural power players attempting to silence and denigrate a dead man, in a very real sense, Freddy comes out as yet another hero of the Greek people.

How it all unfolds is for Yorgos Pratanos to tell. I heartily recommend The Unwanted Dead, novel as eyeopener, especially for readers of English who are not necessarily familiar with the struggles in Greece revolving around one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century.

For me, reading The Unwanted Dead evoked memories of Zorba the Greek, both the book and the film. How much passion does Yorgos Pratanos infuse in his tale? I'm put in mind of Zorba and Basil played by Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates -



The Unwanted Dead also reminds me of the famous epitaph on Nikos Kazantzakis' grave that reads: ‘I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free’.

And what faces do I associate with this powerful Nikos Kazantzakis epitaph? Two come immediately to mind - Antony Quinn as Zorba and the great Nikos Kazantzakis himself -





"Kazantzakis may have been living abroad for many years, but his undeniable presence was still felt in country through his works and the stir they had caused and the international acclaim he had received. For every one person who criticized his work as unpatriotic and un-Christian, there were a myriad of others who believed the exact opposite, and practically the whole of the Cretan population was bursting with pride for their fellow countryman." --- Yorgos Pratanos, The Unwanted Dead


Greek author and journalist Yorgos Pratanos