Come back and Take is a book by a poet, doctor, traveler and, in a sense, researcher. An oncologist by profession, Alexander Stessin lived in many places around the world until he finally fulfilled his dream and spent three years in Ghana as the only doctor in a rural hospital. Two stories in the book describe his “big African journey”, though less from the perspective of a curious traveler than of an emigrant who sees a new world, his surroundings, with limitless wonder and empathy.

It is precisely Stessin’s attempt to “immerse” himself that lends this book its remarkable sincerity and vitality. He writes about an Africa in which he — a doctor, poet, emigrant, American, native of the Soviet Union and researcher enamored of the language and culture of Ghana — lives, works, talks with people, makes friends and tries to understand himself in a completely different reality. He opens himself up to new people, a new language and new places, and all that he describes seems both commonplace and remarkable.