For the Russian reader, Africa is still terra incognita. Its diverse geography corresponds to the abundance of distinctive and absolutely dissimilar cultures. Alexander Stesin, a writer, poet and doctor, has been traveling around this still incompletely studied continent for many years, plunging into its life and history. He treats typhus in the desert and malaria in the jungle, studies Swahili and Chvi languages, collects butterflies in Madagascar, compares the cuisines of Senegal and Somalia, translates local classics and contemporary authors. Before us is a new type of African text for Russian literature: a hundred years after N. Gumilyov's travels, Stesin turns out to be an intermediary between cultures, divides long-standing stereotypes about a continent that may have to determine the future.