Short thread on @johnypits Afropean, notes from black Europe. Original plan: read it as companion to our planned summer Euro train hol. Then Covid intervened. So I read it now as a substitute for the train hol. /1

Short review: it’s brilliant, inspiring, epic, enlightening, the tale of the best interail trip ever, kick started with a night out in Liege with Caryl Phillips & Linton Kwesi Johnson /2

Slightly longer review: it’s a complex multi layered story of a Sheffield man’s search for black Europe, Afropea, set in 10 or so Euro locations, taking in racism, migrant neighbourhoods, colonial history, black writers etc /3

Afropea has many faces, elements - the further he travels the more he’s sure it’s not a monolith - but he also knows that he has found its most fundamental expression in Marseilles, his “Afropean Mecca” /4

He visits Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Marseilles & Lisbon + passing visits to Rome, Toulon, Madrid /5

The colonial / postcolonial historical context frames every section - eg Tervuren central Africa museum outside Brussels, USSR support for African independence movements, Leopoldo Villa on south France coast drenched in Congolese blood… /6

…Surinamese independence, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, students escaping from Lisbon to help liberate Lusophone Africa, Cape Verdean independence /7

As a narrator Pitts is a wonderful companion - perfectly balanced being inside / outside, he’s both a journalist and your travelling mate, all served up with a mixture of confidence, insight and self-deprecation /8

There are loads of fascinating characters: Almamy Kanoute in Clichy, Jessica in Amsterdam, Nino in Lisbon, Hishem & Mohammed in Berlin, Mandela’s “brother” in Rinkeby, Lucille in Stockholm /9

He loses himself in districts of big cities that have become home to African communities: Clichy-sous-Bois in Paris, Cova da Moura in Lisbon, Rinkeby in Stockholm, Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam etc /10

And as he travels along the south coast of France, he brings the writings of James Baldwin, Claude McKay and Frantz Fanon to life /11

“For a poor gay black kid born into the Harlem ghetto in 20s America who fled to Paris with only $40 in his pocket to end his life here, picking figs and peaches in a ten-acre garden, hosting A-list celebrities… /12

…And writing to the blissful twitter of blue tits under the shade of a palm tree suggests a perfect trajectory for a life story of true emancipation” /13

This is beautiful writing - although his assessment of Baldwin’s time in south of France is also much more nuanced and he is v reflective of his own role “I wondered whether we who make the pilgrimage [to Baldwin’s house] aren’t all just hangers-on too” /14

In Matonge, Brussels “I was a backpacker too but my circumstances were somewhere between the all-white middle class gap yearers and the poor and entirely brown skinned loiterers... I didn’t quite belong to either group” /15

His anecdote to illustrate: he chatting to white Belgian guy with laptop; security guards approach ‘where r u from? Where’s ur passport?’ He rightly outraged, then guards confirm 2 Moroccan men tried to rob him, mood changes, Belgian guy describes Moroccans “absolute scum” /16

No surprise that racism is a theme throughout but the most shocking incident is when he gets racially harassed on a train to Marseilles by a group of middle aged drunk Brits; it’s appalling & depressing and in total contrast to the profundity of Pitts’ odyssey /17

Finally, there’s a brief reference to epigenetics, race science masquerading under a fancy name. Lucille in Stockholm studies (and believes in) it: “I think of my mother and her heritage which is linked to slavery… /18

…And I sometimes think those memories and experiences are entrenched not just within the black psyche but in black people’s very biology. So many black people including my mother have this kind of latent slave mentality” /19

This thread only captures a tiny, tiny part of what’s so good about Afropean. Get this on your #lockdownreadinglist /20