100 books like Afropean

While the Black freedom struggle is often approached through the activism of Black males, the history of the struggle in Europe—like in the United States and elsewhere in the world—owes much to Black women, Black female scholar-activists, and Black feminist and Queer networks. Yet they remain woefully underrepresented in scholarship and collective memory.

I, therefore, chose this edited volume, because it uniquely presents the stories, intersectional experiences, and visions of contemporary Black female activists, artists, and scholars from across the continent. This not only uncovers the significant intellectual, political, social, and cultural contributions of Black women, but also expands definitions of (political) activism to include, among others, motherhood and the home.

Next to a growing body of work on the centuries-old Black human and cultural presence in and contributions to Europe (see among others the work of David Olusoga, Peter Fryer, Paul Gilroy, Olivette Olete, and Jacqueline Nassy Brown), memoirs and autobiography provide an excellent means for understanding the Black lived experience in Europe. In line with a longer, transnational Black tradition of using the genre to counter Black invisibility in history writing and collective memory, such works often expertly combine personal narrative with historical research.

While countless other impressive examples exist (see e.g. Afua Hirsh) and Reni Eddo-Lodge’s work doesn’t fully qualify as a ‘memoir,’ I chose her work because of the honest and insightful way it addresses—and has fueled British discussions on—the meaning of citizenship for racialized subjects in the United Kingdom, and the roles class and the politics of memory play in this. As a time document of… show more.

As one of the first scholarly attempts to investigate the Black experience on a continental scale (as opposed to in individual European nations), this edited volume presents a good introduction to the multifaceted questions and approaches that emerge when studying this topic. Offering insights from various scholarly disciplines and 20th and 21st-century case studies from individual countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Britain, and the Netherlands, it provides thoughtful essays that explore the meanings of ‘Blackness’ and belonging in Europe, and the roles the local, national, global, and metaphysical play within (imaginary) diasporic discourse and identity. As such, it invites critical thinking about the strengths and limitations of the usability of ‘Black Europe’ as a concept and unit of analysis.   

This impressively well-researched study focuses on the reception of Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker in post-World War II Germany. Although it only marginally references the Black German perspective (for that I recommend among others the work of Tina Campt, Tiffany Florvil, and Fatima El-Tayeb), it skillfully shows how Europeans perceive notions of race and racism through the prism of (African) Americanization.

Gerund illuminates particularly how White Germans’ interactions with (Black) America can provide pivotal insights into the meaning of ‘Whiteness’ and ‘citizenship’ in a European national context. This matters, because this in turn shapes (mis)understandings of the Black European plight and thus what anti-racism activists are up against. Like the works by Black scholars on the Netherlands, such as Gloria Wekker’s White Innocence and Philomena Essed’s edited volume Dutch Racism, Gerund’s study contributes to our understanding of how (fighting) notions of race must include grasping… show more.

The canon of anti-colonial, anti-racism writing from and about Africa includes many authors whose passion and insights are sometimes muddied by turgid or masculinist prose. For me, Rodney stands out – and stands the test of time – by the way he so masterfully weaves history into a compelling narrative that utterly demolishes the lies and conceits about supposed Western benevolence toward the continent. Scales fell from my eyes the first time (of many) I read this book. And yes, Rodney is almost as androcentric in his language, sources, and arguments as was the norm in those days. But his acknowledgment of the dignity of African women is implicit, and his discussion of the regressive elements of the colonial economy and education for African women and girls presaged a field of scholarly enquiry and activism that still intrigues me.

In these times of Black Lives Matter, emboldened white-supremicists, and with European dominance descendant, Born into Blackness is a revelatory and blunt dose of historical reality. I was not fully aware of the centrality of the slave economy in Europe’s rise to global dominance. Most importantly, I was ignorant of the level of cultural, political, and economic sophistication of the African nations when the Portuguese first explored the west coast of Africa. I had some understanding of the Haitian revolution and its manifestation of the enlightenment ideals, but this book opened my eyes to the historical ripples of the revolution: the Louisiana purchase, ceding much of present-day Southern US from Napoleon’s France; the sale and forced-march of thousands of slaves into the cotton-growing south, fueling an economic take-off that made the US an imperial power.

This is a story of love and friendship set in 1950s Algeria before and during the Algerian War of Independence. The main character, Younes, is an Arabic Algerian but forms friendships with some European boys and falls in love with Emilie a beautiful European girl. Great descriptions of the environment and the characters’ feelings make for an engrossing and moving read as Younes has to make choices about his loyalties towards his friends and family from the two different cultures. 

Omenana to Infinity is an anthology of collected works formerly published in Omenana Magazine. The anthology is edited by Mazi Nwonwu and Chinelo Onwualu, like the magazine its stories are culled from. The duo also founded and edited the magazine which is the first African, exclusively speculative fiction magazine. It's important to me because it contains some of the earliest works of speculative short fiction by African writers I would read as an issue of a magazine and did a great lot in platforming speculative fiction writers on the continent. 

One of the first European accounts of Congo, I read this book for my PhD, studying under the British author and journalist Giles Foden.

Pigafetta's account helped me understand the lenses—often colonial, of exoticism, fear, and wonder—through which Congo and Central Africans have long been perceived by Europeans and the world.

Pigafetta writes of Africa as the unknown, the dark, the frightening and mysterious, ideas still present in the news we consume today. I had often wondered why certain stories I pitch never get published, while others are easy sells.

The answers are rooted in events centuries ago, and it's easy to see that when we decide to take a look.

Northup provocatively challenges our perceptions of the early modern world. By offering a relativist view and investigating the primary sources written by Africans themselves — the Africans of the early modern period. They reveal much about sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe, as well as African civilizations.