Helen, her only consolation being the tender and exciting memories with her beloved, paces herself through the next ten days, wondering what more can be done to her husband now that he’s dead. They robbed him of the Nobel Prize, they fought to excommunicate him.

Will they now allow him a burial? Will they honor their dead?

Meanwhile, in post-Civil War Athens, the ambitious reporter Freddy Germanos is assigned his first significant reportage: to cover the funeral and expose the authorities’ machinations to silence a dead man.

Nikos Kazantzakis, a popular post WWII Cretan writer, died in October 1957. His works included “Zorba the Greek” and “The Last Temptation of Christ. Many thought he was a Communist and a heretic, and the Greek clergy tried to ban his books. Some even wanted him excommunicated. His enemies not only included the Greek Orthodox Church, but also politicians, writers, and journalists.

He went into self-imposed exile, but he was persecuted long after he left. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature nine times but never won. Though Kazantzakis did not want to return to Greece, he still wanted to be buried in his birthplace of Crete. Will the Church grant him a dignified burial? Will the Church in Crete stand up to the Archdiocese in Athens? Whichever way it goes, will Kazantzakis get the support of the Cretan people?

The Unwanted Dead switches mostly between Freiburg, West Germany where his widow Helen will have his body transported from, and Athens. The latter is where twenty-three-year-old journalist Freddy Germanos desperately wants to cover the funeral and controversy but is relegated to write about the arrival of American movie star Jayne Mansfield. He eventually does get to fly to Crete to cover the story.

Helen reminisces about her life with Nikos, both personal, and experiencing the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Crete. But it is the subchapters with Freddy that I enjoyed the most. He questions that with the tragedies brought about by the Nazi occupation and the Greek Civil War, why were the Church and fanatics intent on persecuting this man, even in death? Freddy fights for freedom of speech but must choose which battles to take.


The Unwanted Dead, though very well written, may appeal more to those who are familiar with Nikos Kazantzakis’s work. However, I found that the issues covered regarding the power of the Church and freedom of speech to be particularly noteworthy. Highly recommended.

(The complete review will be posted on UnderratedReads on Jan. 3, 2022)

An unusual tale told from the point of view of a widow of a renowned author who had been cast out by his home country. It follows the trials and tribulations of taking his body back home, across many borders, and fighting to get a proper Orthodox funeral service for him. We also follow Freddie, a younger reporter who is sent to cover the event.

Even though it cover the matter of death, it didn't have what I felt was an impactful emotion to it, something was missing, it was hard to put my finger on it. Perhaps the characters, especially Helen the widow, were too wooden. Freddie was interesting though, following him around as he got the feeling of the people of the country as they mostly came together to honour the dead author.

At times, it crossed between Helens voice and then Freddies when going from one paragraph to the next, which made reading it a little bit more difficult. Even though it's set in the 50's, and references kept being made back to the occupation during WW2, it could have been anytime.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.