A young man caught between two worlds discovers what it truly means to belong.At almost eighteen, Giorgos Balaskapoulos lives in the most beautiful place he knows and feels nothing but emptiness. Tarpon Springs, Florida, is the sponge-diving capital of the world, a loud and loving Greek-American town where his family owns the boats, the curio shops, and half the restaurants on the dock. Everyone seems certain of who they are. Everyone, that is, except Giorgos.His parents are gone, taken by a car crash in Miami. His fierce grandmother Lenka now runs the house, the family, and Giorgos with equal conviction, insisting that the Greeks invented nearly everything worth inventing and that his future lies at sea, married to a nice Greek girl, making Greek babies. His brother dives for sponges. His sister sets off firecrackers on the wharf. And Giorgos, torn between the weight of tradition and a longing he cannot name, can only answer the question of what he wants with three quiet words: Den gnorizo. I do not know.Then an American girl walks into his uncle's shop to buy a simple wooden cross, and the careful order of Giorgos's world begins to shift. Guided by the pipe-smoking, scripture-quoting Father Abeiron, steadied by an unlikely friendship with a wounded veteran, and pushed by a grandmother who loves him too much to let him drift, Giorgos is drawn through Epiphany dives and feast-day dances toward a choice about faith, family, and the kind of man he intends to become.Warm, funny, and deeply felt, Who Wants To Be Greek? is a coming-of-age story about heritage and self-discovery in one of America's most singular communities. It is a love letter to the Greek-American experience, to the bouzouki and the incense and the kitchen that is never quiet, and to the truth that identity is not a place you arrive at but a dance you learn to make your own.For readers who treasured the heart of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the cultural warmth of Adriana Trigiani, Victoria Hislop, and Nicholas Sparks.This Expanded Edition presents the complete novel as a single, continuous English read, including the Epilogue on what it finally means to be Greek and a Bonus Chapter set on the island of Kalymnos, ancestral home of the Balaskapoulos family. A companion Bilingual Learning Edition, pairing the story with Modern Greek and pronunciation guides, is also available for readers who wish to experience the language alongside the tale.
