Review - Afropean : Notes from Black Europe by Johny Pitts

Synopsis: Departing from his hometown of Sheffield, Johny Pitts documents his travels across Europe in search of a shared identity between those of African descent across the continent. Questions of belonging and ‘home’ frame the complications of navigating and surviving in Europe.


Review: Now, I'm openly biased when I say I loved this book. Having studied European Studies with French and Spanish I could probably count the number of works by and or centred Black Europeans that I studied throughout my 4 years of study on one hand. One of those being an extract from Franz Fanon’s `The Wretched of the Earth’ from an introduction to French culture in history module from my first year. (At 8:30am on a Monday morning, hardly anyone showed up…)

Approaching this book as someone who has searched high and low for black European narratives, has travelled across some of the cities mentioned and was even inspired to do so watching Cecile Emeke’s Strolling documentary series on Youtube, it was a relief to finally see a book like this in print.

Part memoir, part travelogue, the book reads as a re-imagined travel guide which comes face to face with the glossy images that we are usually accustomed to a European utopia. At times, it offers a stark and realistic additions to beloved favourites such a Lonely Planet guides notably in his notes from Lisbon: ‘Lisbon may be a masterpiece but look closer at the brushstrokes and you’ll find some troubling details’.

The beautifully shot black and white photography of Afropeans living authentically and going about their daily lives captures the many complexities and difficulties of living in Europe as part of the African diaspora and the overlapping identities. From Guerlain protesters assembling in the streets of Paris to a statue of Pushkin illuminated by copper street lights in Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square, they wonderfully uncover the existence of an African presence in Europe that has survived for hundreds of years, as well as the modern-day impacts of navigating this complicated continent that many have made home.