Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Winner of the Jhalak Prize

'A revelation' Owen Jones


'Afropean seizes the blur of contradictions that have obscured Europe's relationship with blackness and paints it into something new, confident and lyrical' Afua Hirsch

A Guardian, New Statesman and BBC History Magazine Best Book of 2019

'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 . . . 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.'

Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is 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. Johny Pitts 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, all the while presenting Afropeans as lead actors in their own story.

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Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Winner of the Jhalak Prize

'A revelation' Owen Jones


'Afropean seizes the blur of contradictions that have obscured Europe's relationship with blackness and paints it into something new, confident and lyrical' Afua Hirsch

A Guardian, New Statesman and BBC History Magazine Best Book of 2019

'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 . . . 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.'

Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is 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. Johny Pitts 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, all the while presenting Afropeans as lead actors in their own story.

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Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

by Johny Pitts
Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

by Johny Pitts

eBook

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Overview

Winner of the Jhalak Prize

'A revelation' Owen Jones


'Afropean seizes the blur of contradictions that have obscured Europe's relationship with blackness and paints it into something new, confident and lyrical' Afua Hirsch

A Guardian, New Statesman and BBC History Magazine Best Book of 2019

'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 . . . 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.'

Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is 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. Johny Pitts 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, all the while presenting Afropeans as lead actors in their own story.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780141984735
Publisher: Penguin UK
Publication date: 06/06/2019
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 224
File size: 12 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer, and broadcaster known for his work in exploring African-European identities. He is the curator of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) award- inning Afropean.com, and the author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe. Currently, he co-hosts the Open Book literature programme for BBC Radio 4 and as a National Geographic Explorer, is the creator of a forthcoming Afropean podcast funded by National Geographical Society.

In recognition of his work, he has received the Jhalak Prize, the Bread&Roses Award for Radical Publishing, the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, and the European Essay Prize.

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.'

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Prologue: Sheffield 11

Paris 31

A Tour of Black Paris 33

An Afropean Flâneur 52

Four Days in Clichy-sous-Bois 64

Brussels 83

Matongé 85

Tervuren Uncensored 102

A Meeting with Caryl Phillips 116

Amsterdam 117

Fight the Power 119

Berlin 165

Whitegeiβt 167

Germaica 181

Stockholm 205

Let the Right Ones In 207

Rinkeby Swedish 223

Moscow 245

I Worry as I Wander 247

Strangers in Moscow 264

Marseille and the French Riviera 283

Interlude in Rome 285

Joseph Mobutu's Roquebrune-Cap-Martin 290

James Baldwin's Saint-Paul-de-Vence 298

Frantz Fanon's Toulon 306

McKay's Marseille 313

Lisbon 337

The Night Train to Lisbon 339

A European Favela 354

An Afropean Odyssey 373

Notes 383

Acknowledgements 389

Resources 393

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