Afropean

Afropean

Notes from Black Europe

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and forging new identities: too indelibly woven into Europe to identify with Africa and yet struggling with outdated ideas of what it means to be European.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

Reviews

  • 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
    The Guardian

About the author

Johny Pitts

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.
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