Nikos Kazantzakis in Nederland

In 1952, when he was almost seventy years old, Nikos Kazantzakis came to the Netherlands for his one and only visit to the country. The reason behind this sixweek visit was medical. Kazantzakis went to the Diakonessenhuis in Utrecht to get treatment for the eczema that had been troubling him for many years. Kazantzakis himself believed that he suffered from the so-called ‘saint’s disease,’ the horrible rashes and ulcers that, according to monastic literature, prevent ascetics who are overwhelmed by sexual desire from acting on their urges. The medical reason behind Kazantzakis’ eczema was not found in Utrecht. It was only a few years later that he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, which eventually led to his death in 1957. While he was in the Netherlands, Kazantzakis was interviewed by several important newspapers on account of the success of his novels Zorba the Greek and Christ Recrucified. He also met with Reinder and Mies Blijstra, authors and translators of his work into Dutch, and became friends with the well-known writer A. den Doolaard who introduced him to LincolnSchuster, the man who would become his distributer in the United States.