I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition.

Probably everyone has watched Zorba the Greek, but few have picked up Kazantzakis’ novel, Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά. Meanwhile, it is a small masterpiece, a study of the Greek soul, a praise of sassiness and simple pleasures, written with great humour and distance from Greekness. Kazantzakis met Georgios Zorbas in real life, who was in fact a miner working in the Prastova mine. Today, it is difficult to ascertain how much in the novel was the truth, but there was something far better, than movie.

This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.