AT THE PALACES OF KNOSSOS

“The beast sighed. It lowered its head.

What’s wrong? The King affectionately asked again.

The Minotaur now gazed at the King, its eyes filled with pain.

It opened its mouth as if to speak, but couldn’t.

Two new tears rolled down its eyes.”

One of the most captivating adaptations of myth into novel, for children and grownups alike. The Minotaur and Theseus, Daedalus and Icarus, Crete and Athens, history and human emotions whirling into a labyrinth, whose Creature and Creator clash and collide in this beautiful book, At the Palaces of Knossos by Nikos Kazantzakis. The primordial game to the death between Man and Bull, Man and God in the spiritual arena of the glorious Minoan Empire.

Never before has a Greek myth evoked such profound yearning for freedom. At the tip of Kazantzakis’s masterful pen, the archetype of the mythical bloodthirsty Minotaur is revisited and a desolate lonesome creature rises to take its place, bursting with divine hunger and mortal anguish. Eternally trapped in his labyrinthine prison, he yearningly awaits his redeemer, while Theseus, the Prince of Athens, embarks on the first day of Spring on a boat with black sails to kill a beast and free his homeland.

Princess Ariadne suffocating in her royal splendors, yearns for freedom and Icarus flies too close to the sun once more. The reader may discern Nikos Kazantzakis’s glowing smile behind the faces of his young and vibrant characters and will experience a masterfully narrated tale of dignity, bravery and enchanting suspense.