A row over the rights to the works of Greece’s most celebrated writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, is intensifying after the supreme court ruled that the adopted son of his late widow is his rightful heir.
The feud — which has pitted relatives and admirers of the author of Zorba the Greek against Patroclos Stavrou, the adopted son of his late widow, Eleni — erupted seven years ago as a disagreement over copyright ownership of the author’s works.
Despite the intervention of the supreme court, which ruled that Stavrou, a Cypriot-born philologist, was the writer’s rightful heir, the Âdispute shows no sign of abating.
“Kazantzakis’s natural heirs are considering taking further action,” said Yorgos Stassinakis, who heads the Geneva-based International ÂSociety of the Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis.
“The court decision did not go to the heart of the matter, which is the books. Publication and translation of all of this great man’s works has been very poor and as a result Âreaders worldwide have not had access to them.”
Legal guardian
A widow for more than 40 years, Eleni Kazantzakis met Stavrou during a visit to the island in 1967. Fifteen years later she adopted him as her legal son and heir. She was in her 70s and he was 55.
“She became my mother and I became her son,” writes Stavrou in a prologue to the catalogue of works produced by the publishing company he established with Eleni.
After her death, he became the guardian of Kazantzakis’s works. But critics accuse him of failing to promote the author’s legacy adequately.
Stavrou was forced to withdraw from the board of the Kazantzakis Museum in Crete, where the writer was born and buried, for allegedly failing to attend meetings.
Last year the International Society of the Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis began a global campaign, gathering some 4?008 signatures in 92 countries, to “save and promote” his Âartistic legacy.
In an open letter addressed to the Greek president, it denounced what they said was Stavrou’s dismal oversight of the work. The Nobel prize-winning novelist Nadine Gordimer and French politician Ségolène Royal are among those who signed the petition.
An essayist and traveller, who translated Shakespeare and Dante to make ends meet, Kazantzakis wrote more than 30 books. His range extended from popular novels such as the Last Temptation of Christ to The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, an epic poem of 33?333 verses he rewrote seven times and considered his best work. In 1957 he lost the Nobel Prize for Literature to Albert Camus by one vote. —