Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek: Νίκος Καζαντζάκης) (February 18, 1883, Heraklion, Crete, Greece - October 26, 1957, Freiburg, Germany) was arguably the most important and most translated Greek writer and philosopher of the 20th century. Yet he did not become truly well known until the 1964 release of the Michael Cacoyannis film Zorba the Greek, based on Kazantzakis' novel whose English translation has the same title.

The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel is an epic poem by the Greek poet and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis based on Homer's Odyssey. It is divided into 24 rhapsodies (see rhapsody) as is the original Odyssey and consists of 33,333 17-syllable verses. Kazantzakis began working on it in 1924 after he returned to Crete from Germany. Before finally publishing the poem in 1938 he had drafted seven different versions. Kazantzakis considered this his most important work. It was fully translated into English in 1958 by Kimon Friar.