Urban Iconographies

Abstract

This article examines literary evocations of Afropolitanism in French, with particular attention to millennial works by Black women writers. Narratives and portraits by Lauren Ekué, Léonora Miano, and Rokhaya Diallo reject the Afro-pessimism of twentieth-century visions of urban migration by foregrounding the consumerism and cultural capital of their female protagonists. Rethinking Paris as a stage rather than a site, these works present new models of Afropolitan iconography, featuring women who are eminently alert to the contradictions and contingencies of contemporary Black experience. In teasing out the links among presentism, hip-hop culture, and the European beauty industry, these explorations generate a unique brand of performed consumerism that forges a dialogue between Black female cosmopolitanism and historicity.