Crossing Borders of Times, One Man’s Journey to Search For His Ukrainian, Greek & Bulgarian Roots tells the story of a family stretched across countries, decades, and memories. It follows George, an aging immigrant reflecting on his life, and Alex, his grandson, who stumbles into their tangled heritage. Their lives intertwine with ancestors from Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Greece through letters, dreams, pictures, and rediscovered 142-year-old lost manuscripts. He discovered in the basement of his old house in Khan Asparuh Street, Sofia, Bulgaria, narrative moves between nursing homes in America, historic struggles in Eastern Europe, and the restless search for identity in a modern world. It is part memoir, part novel, part meditation on belonging.

Reading this book felt like sitting in someone’s living room as they pulled old photo albums and told stories that were raw, unpolished, and heavy with feeling. The prose has a weight, an almost aching pull toward the past, but it’s balanced by warmth.

From the first lines, we dive right into the story. Crossing Borders of Time”: ‘One Man’s Journey to Search for His Ukrainian, Greek, and Bulgarian Roots’ by Kiril Kristoff is a masterfully crafted narrative that deftly blends memoir and fiction.

The Literary Titan Book Award winner Kristoff uses elegance, nuance, and clarity to depict a deeply personal and moving story. In addition to honoring the immigrant experience, this book offers a poignant meditation on spiritual inheritance, cultural identity, and intergenerational connection.

The story immerses readers in a universe full of historical resonance and emotional weight from the very first sentence. Kristoff establishes the mood early on with a narrative voice that is both personal and sweeping. By introducing readers to George, whose life and legacy act as the story’s emotional compass, the opening paragraph foreshadows the great voyage that lies ahead. It is a powerful beginning that entices readers to keep turning the pages because it is vivid and full of promise.

The complex, multi-layered tale of Grandpa George, a Bulgarian immigrant who overcomes poverty, war, and cultural displacement to start over in America, is at the core of this book. George’s hardships – beginning at the bottom of an auto repair shop, overcoming anti-immigrant sentiment, and attempting to establish a dignified life – are realistically and compassionately depicted. No matter how minor, his personal triumphs are incredibly fulfilling and give the story a powerful emotional undertone.

A Saga of four  Generations of Americans of Bulgarian Roots men: This is history and geography all wrapped in a story of culture, hardship, and achievement in the American dream. Grandpa George & grandson Alex are not ordinary travelers. Adventure is a tapestry in this historic, fictional emigrant’s travel novel memoir where courage, friendship, relationships, family, and love are threads. George has the elixir of curiosity, empathy, an indefatigable nature, and creativity to explore the hidden corners of a faraway place and draw out the stories from relatives he met in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. After the Afterlife, George received the most straightforward, informative answers to questions about what happens after a person passes into the afterlife, which he wrote in his memories.

The topics explored range from human and personal issues, such as who greets the person after their passing, to insightful descriptions of the nature of consciousness and reality. Meeting all his past way parents & relatives, He found many answers to all these questions with his characteristic laid-back directness in a no-nonsense way that brings our understanding of the afterlife into the twenty-first century.

At times, I’d be caught by an image so sharp and tender that it stopped me. It’s not a clean, tight novel. It’s messy in the way life is messy, which oddly made it more convincing. The book insists that roots matter, even when you’ve spent years pretending they don’t. I felt the tension of being between cultures, never quite at home anywhere, and the heartbreak of seeing traditions fade with each generation. The sections on Alex’s obsession with his great-great-grandfather’s manuscript made me restless, because I know that pull, the need to give voice to those who came before us. At times, I wanted the story to dig deeper into Alex’s present struggles, but maybe that’s the point. The past overshadows everything, and it’s left to us to wrestle with it or ignore it.

I’d say this book is best for readers who crave stories of migration, memory, and the ache of belonging. If you want to sit with a book that makes you think about your grandparents, your childhood, or the stories that shaped you, it delivers. It’s for the ones who wonder where they come from and for those willing to accept that the answer may never be simple.

Pages: 513 | ASIN: B0F79TRN5J