brunette

A person who has black hair is generally called "black-haired".
brunet is:

a person having brown or black hair and often a relatively dark complexion —spelled brunet when used of a boy or man

It is not about skin colour here but about his hair, there is no racial connotation whatsoever, trust me. It gives description of his curly black hair, that’s it.

Normally, you'd refer to complexion using "swarthy" or "tawny," but since the source word is also pejorative, you'd have to use something like: "Hey, brown boy!". It's okay for people to call themselves brown but calling someone else brown can be taken as a racial slur--it's like saying: "Hey, white boy!".

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Note added at 3 hrs (2019-10-12 14:06:11 GMT)
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Reply to Boris Shapiro's comment (couldn't fit the entire thing in the answer box):

I totally know where you’re coming from! But this is a lit. translation, so we can’t just make it PC like we would (and should) when doing marketing localization/transcreation because we don’t believe in using these kinds of pejoratives. For example, it’s generally okay to use “black” (“the black community,” “black families,” even “he’s black”) as long as you aren’t using it as a slur. There are people of color who prefer “black” to “colored people” or “African Americans,” for some it’s a personal preference while others don’t consider themselves to have African heritage. These are my feelings and observations on the matter--I’m originally from LA, but this is also periodically written about: https://fordhamobserver.com/30133/opinions/should-we-say-bla... It’s a delicate and ongoing dialogue, but it’s definitely not cut and dry.

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Note added at 4 hrs (2019-10-12 14:55:54 GMT)
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Also: https://medium.com/@journojoshua/we-should-stop-saying-peopl...

Just continuing the sociocultural dialogue with another article, but I want to make it clear that using "brown boy" will be pejorative, and I'm only suggesting it because it's a literary translation.

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Note added at 5 hrs (2019-10-12 15:38:09 GMT)
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Boris, please see the notes I added. I couldn't fit the entire reply in to the answer box.

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Note added at 10 hrs (2019-10-12 20:59:27 GMT)
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Boris, I just saw your comments to others regarding the Caucasus, and I think I understand now what you meant. But, “In Russian slang, Peoples of the Caucasus are called black, despite the fact that the Georgian, Dagestani, Chechen etc. population is fair-skinned while the Azeri and Armenian are darker toned; this name calling comes from their relatively darker features. While the word black in itself is not racist, the racist synonym for it is "chernozhopy" (черножо́пый, trans. black arsed)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Russia.
I grew up in CA, but I am bilingual and bicultural (although English is much stronger in the language pair). I’ve also lived in Moscow for the last six years and have personally seen this happen here to the aforementioned groups of people, as well as to the Romani and even light-skinned Ashkenazi Jews (not just the darker-skinned Sephardic).
Maybe, I still don’t understand exactly what you meant, but the context for "black vs white" exists here. While “brown” isn’t used in this region and translating the OP’s term as “black” would be confusing for English-speakers, “brown” works in a lit. translation into English (we're translating into English, right?) as some East Asians, Southeast Asians, as well as Middle Easterners and Hispanics, etc (at least in the States) do sometimes refer to themselves as “brown,” and are also sometimes referred to this way in a derogatory manner. Please clarify if I still don't understand what you meant.

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Note added at 11 hrs (2019-10-12 22:07:03 GMT)
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I didn’t realize the OP was asking about both usage instances. I thought she just needed help with the latter one. Whether two different words need to be used depends on the narrator’s tone, so more context is needed! It could be anything from: “A small-framed, dark-skinned young man…” + “…Hey, brown boy” to “A short swarthy young man…” + “Hey, brown boy!” to literally: "A small-framed /short brown boy" + "Hey, brown boy!".

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Note added at 1 day 2 hrs (2019-10-13 12:43:50 GMT)
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Olesya, it boils down to the context, time-period, medium (prose, film, etc) and artistic merit of what you’re translating. Does the narrator mean to demean the guy when he calls him chernyaviy? Or, is he solely describing him this way based on his features, using a common word that no one thinks twice about? If this is older prose, I feel like it’s the latter. If that's the case, I would choose a neutral-sounding variation for the first instance because using brown pejoratively would be confusing to many in the modern English speaking PC world; an unnecessary distraction, raising questions about the narrator/author, rather than keeping them engaged with the storyline.

As for the second instance, you need something that sounds natural in speech. So, I would use “brown boy” or it’s older equivalent—“brownie,” which apparently was a thing in the US in the 1940s-1950s (Green, Jonathon (2005). Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, p188) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs#cite_note... I haven’t quite heard “brownie” used in modern lexicon, but it sounds natural in speech, and if it’s something older you’re working on, and you need to preserve the literary merit of the piece, you might want to use something old-school. The Misha mentioned that cops in NY are sometimes referred to as brownies, maybe other natives/those living in primarily English speaking countries can weigh in on this. Personally, I don’t think this is critical because the number of English speakers who have this association may be negligible, plus the narrator’s description will point the audience to physical features, rather than profession.

PS Although, I appreciate the points Boris has raised, I think the fact that I didn't understand at first what he was talking about is a clue as to whether not having a context for something between black and white locally is relevant for a lit. translation into English. I wouldn't worry about using something associated with brown because although this sounds off when translated into Russian, you're translating into English where the context for being oppressed for being something between black and white does exist. This will make perfect sense to English-speakers and won't distract them from the storyline. Boris did propose some interesting alternatives in his Russian comment in the Discussion entry chat-box, so you might want to check them out. In order to use them, though, you would need additional context. Is the reader/audience familiar enough with the characters in order to recognize them, if you were to use an adjective that has nothing to do with color, but with their features, and/or personality?

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Note added at 1 day 2 hrs (2019-10-13 12:58:27 GMT)
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PPS Using something associated with "black" would illicit the wrong [racial] associations in English speakers due to local socio-cultural factors, which is why I don't suggest it, even though "browns" don't exist lexically in the region your piece is about.

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Note added at 1 day 2 hrs (2019-10-13 12:58:56 GMT)
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PPS Using something associated with "black" would illicit the wrong [racial] associations in English speakers due to local socio-cultural factors, which is why I don't suggest it, even though "browns" don't exist lexically in the region your piece is about.

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Note added at 1 day 4 hrs (2019-10-13 14:46:47 GMT)
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On “swarthy” as part of first usage of chernyaviy (narrator’s description) and it’s relevance to the source's context:

“This race of southern Slavs presents some peculiarities when compared with the recognized Slav type. They are dark-eyed and swarthy skinned (very different in complexion from the northern Slavs).”

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...

"(...) There exist two kinds of Slavic people. First kind are people of swarthy complexion and dark hair. They live near the coast of the [Mediterranean] Sea. The other kind are fair people, who live inland. (…)"

"(...) What is peculiar [when it comes to Slavs], most of Bojema people [Bohemians / Czechs] are of swarthy complexion and dark hair, while fair colors are rare among them [compared to frequencies among other West and East Slavs]. (...)"

https://historum.com/threads/physical-appearance-of-early-me...