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Afropean

Notes from Black Europe

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Afropean

Written by: Johny Pitts
Narrated by: Johny Pitts
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Summary

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allegiances and forging new identities: too indelibly woven into Europe to identify with Africa and yet struggling with outdated ideas of what it means to be European.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.

 Anthropology Europe Africa Social justice Imperialism Refugee Middle Ages Soviet Union Socialism Latin America Middle East
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What the critics say

Afropean announces the arrival of an impassioned author able to deftly navigate and illuminate a black world that for many would otherwise have remained unseen
[Pitts'] talent for sharp summary is apparent early on...a natural talent for describing cities and their atmosphere
a beautiful study of black identity in Europe
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
"forced me to stop and pause", "the book invites us to witness journeys of creativity of communities often unrecorded in studies of European history, highlighting the commonality of African-European experiences across the continent" (Olivette Otele)
All stars
Most Relevant
I always enjoy content that discussing the Black British specifically and the Black European experience more generally. Particularly when it is not centred around the trans Atlantic slave trade. Partly because it inevitably ends up tied up in North or South American History and partly because I’m tired of our history only being linked to slavery seeing as there is so much more.

I loved that this book gave me so much to learn outside Britain but still in Europe in places where I had never really considered blackness. Narratives of post colonial national relationships their formation their dissolution and their consequent legacies.

Pitts can be a tad romantic and admittedly I selfishly find his representation of the Black British experience (lacking seems like too harsh a word) incomplete, but only because he (quite reasonably) focuses on his generation and not mine lol.
While I don’t necessarily identify as an Afropean despite technically fitting the description of one, this book did make me feel prouder to be a Nigerian Brit.

Loved it!

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