Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

by Johny Pitts Narrated by Johny Pitts

Overview

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Afropean written and read by Johny Pitts.

In the face of growing racial discrimination, anti-immigrant sentiment and the spectre of terrorism looming large over an economically stricken continent, Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities: too indelibly woven into Europe to identify with Africa and yet struggling with outdated ideas of what it means to be European.

Afropean will plot an alternative map of the continent, taking the reader to places like Cova Da Moura, the Cape Verdean shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon with its own underground economy, and Rinkeby, the area of Stockholm that is eighty per cent Muslim. The author visits the former Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where West African students are still making the most of Cold War ties with the USSR, and Clichy Sous Bois in Paris, which gave birth to the 2005 riots.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"A courageous, empathetic and insightful work." —Caryl Phillips, author, A View of the Empire at Sunset

"Announces the arrival of an impassioned author able to deftly navigate and illuminate a black world that for many would otherwise have remained unseen." --Guardian

"It is remarkable how quickly he gets to the soul of a place. . . . What is consistently impressive throughout Pitts's work is his ability to blend fact with anecdote; the effect is often cinematic. At times, you may feel that instead of reading a non-fiction book you are watching a well-paced historical thriller." --New Statesman

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169415407
Publisher:	Random House UK
Publication date:	06/06/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

'Afropean. Here was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity. . . . A continent of Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German Reggae and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was part of Europe too, and these were people and places it needed to understand and embrace if it wanted fully functional societies. And Black Europeans, too, need to demand the right to document and disseminate our stories. . . . With my brown skin and my British passport—still a ticket into mainland Europe at the time of writing—I set out in search of the Afropeans, on a cold October morning.'

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