is a British essayist and photographer, curator, journalist and radio presenter. The son of a black musician and a white steelworker, he grew up in Sheffield in the north of England in the 1980s. His work has been honored with the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding and by the European Network Against Racism.

In the spring semester of 2024, Johny Pitts was the 20th “Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor for World Literature” at the University of Bern. In his weekly seminar, his students explored art, culture and creativity on the “B-side”: in other words, artistic products that originate on the “edge” of society, at the “periphery” or in the “underground”. They also explored the question of which alternative histories of Europe emerge from “Afropean” experiences.