Alien

A personal treatise from distinguished social scientist Sandro Galea on the indelible effects of being an immigrant—and what it means for the greater good.

“I am one of the lucky ones,” writes Sandro Galea. Galea left home in Malta at fourteen with his parents and sister as the island was rocked by political turmoil. The family made their way to Canada and Galea, in turn, eventually made his way to the United States. This is the story of Galea’s long, surreal journey of forging a life in a series of new and unfamiliar places.

With spare and deeply affecting prose, Alien is a poignant exploration of what it means to build a life across borders—and why it’s important for all of us. Galea’s intimate and personal story frames the experience of being an immigrant in terms of its indelible lessons on adaptation, identity, belonging, and shared generosity. Galea also captures at once the joys and the uncertainties that define the process of uprooting one life to begin another abroad. His is a reflection on empathy, on precarity, and on the effect of immigrating, in which one becomes keenly aware of how quickly life—and the world—can change.

Blending philosophical inquiry and personal story, Alien bridges the gap between storytelling and scholarship and, in doing so, gifts us an essential aperture on the world not everyone experiences—and the value of having those who do.

Sandro Galea is the Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the Washington University School of Public Health, the Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health, and vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and is one of the most cited social scientists in the world. He has served as a field physician for Doctors Without Borders and has held academic and leadership positions at Boston University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine. A prolific writer and speaker, his most recent book is Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time.