"The 'Blood Brothers' talk about the fratricidal conflict in a village during the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s. Many of the villagers, including Captain Drakos, the son of the priest, Papa-Giannaros, took to the mountains and joined the communist guerrillas. It is Holy Week and, with murder, death, and daily destruction, Papa-Giannaros feels that he carries the sins of the world on his shoulders."

(From the French edition of Nikos Kazantzakis, "Les freres enemis", Plon, Paris 1978.)

The 2009 edition of "Blood Brothers" contains, for the first time, an Epimetro (by Publisher-Curator Dr. Patroklos Stavros), with factual comments and historical information about the dramatic events that inspired the work, which goes beyond the local data and takes on universal symbols of painful and destructive human passions.

"A rough village, in the color of ash, blackened houses under the relentless sun of the Mediterranean islands, inhabitants burned by misery and passions. Today, the dominant passion is hatred. A deadly political hatred that pits brother against brother. And in the face of this whirlwind of lawlessness, stands an elderly man, desperate because his voice is 'a voice crying in the wilderness.' For Papa-Giannaros, this wave of horror can only mean the very impotence of his priesthood: the devil rules the world. Either the devil or Lenin. Because for the teacher, who is excited by new ideas, the struggle has meaning. Seriously ill, almost dying, he holds onto his soul with all his might because he wants to live long enough to see the arrival of Freedom."

"This dying novel by Kazantzakis is, among all his works, the closest to our world, torn apart by fratricidal battles."

(From the French edition of Nikos Kazantzakis, "Les freres enemis", Plon, Paris 1978)