Johny Pitts: Afropean – A Journal
Afropean: A Journal offers a unique perspective on Europe, guiding readers through an alternative interrail journey. The book explores places like Cova Da Moura, a Cape Verdean informal settlement on the outskirts of Lisbon with its own underground economy, and Rinkeby, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Stockholm. Pitts also visits the former Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where West African students maintain connections forged during the Cold War, and Clichy-sous-Bois in Paris, the epicenter of the 2005 riots. Throughout, Pitts presents Afropeans as protagonists shaping their own narratives.
Johny Pitts provides an ongoing visual chronicle of Black European lives and cultures, weaving together two decades of photography, journal entries, and collected artifacts. By adding depth to the understanding of the Black experience in Europe, Pitts spans cities like Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Stockholm, delving deeply into the histories and cultures of Afropeans.
Over the course of a five-month journey across Europe by train, Pitts sought to uncover alternative perspectives on the continent while grappling with his own mixed-race identity. His work combines photography with personal memorabilia—tickets, diary excerpts, maps, postcards, and more—collected along the way. The book also features a selection of newly written essays by Pitts.
About the Author
Born in Sheffield, Johny Pitts is a self-taught photographer, writer, and broadcaster. He is the founder of Afropean.com and the author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe (Penguin, 2020), which has been translated into eight languages and received numerous accolades, including the Jhalak Prize, the European Essay Prize, the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, and The Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing. His collaborative project Home is Not a Place (HarperCollins, 2022), created with TS Eliot Prize-winning poet Roger Robinson, explores the story of Black Britain through photographs and poetry. The project toured prominent UK galleries, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London, Graves Gallery in Sheffield, and Stills Gallery in Edinburgh. It was shortlisted for a British Book Award and won the Ampersand Photoworks Fellowship.
In 2022, Pitts contributed the essay Look Again: Visibility to Tate Publishing’s series examining the National Collection of British Art. The essay, focusing on the theme of visibility within Tate’s galleries, earned high commendation for accessible art writing at the 2024 Historians of British Art Book Prize. In 2021, he served as guest editor for The Eyes Issue 12: The B-Side, which spotlighted Black photographers in Europe.
As a photographer, Pitts has held solo exhibitions at venues such as FOAM in Amsterdam and The Photographers’ Gallery in London. His Afropean: Travels in Black Europe series accompanied his book of the same name. In 2024, he curated After the End of History: British Working Class Photographers 1989-2024 for The Hayward Gallery. This touring exhibition, which includes stops at Focal Point Gallery (Southend), Bonington Gallery (Nottingham), and Stills (Edinburgh), examines how photography has empowered working-class artists to capture the beauty, struggles, and diversity of everyday life.
Pitts’s broadcasting career includes work for MTV, BBC, and ITV. He is currently the host of Open Book on BBC Radio 4 and Afropean: The Podcast.
He is a European Young Leader, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and a National Geographic Explorer. Alongside Nina Camara, Yomi Bazuaye, Tola Ositelu, and Nat Illumine, Pitts co-runs the award-winning Afropean.com, recognized by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
For insights from leading Black artists, academics, and activists featured in the book, as well as immersive soundscapes from European cities captured by Pitts, listen to Afropean: The Podcast.
This book has an accompanying soundtrack: afropean.com/soundtrack.
