Service95 Book Club: Authors of the Estate

Play, explore and be creative at an afternoon of activities from the team behind Authors of the Estate, artist André Anderson, Abdou Cissé and Nabil Al-Kinani. A publishing house is a group of people who find, curate and share stories amongst themselves and the wider world. If you were a publishing house, what stories would you tell? ‘The word author and the word authority have the same root meaning. As a matter of fact, the word ‘author’ in the original Latin tongue is a term to describe someone who is a creator, a master, an enlarger. And a sustainer. So when we say that we are the Authors of the Estate, we are not just saying we simply write. We are saying we are the creators, masters, enlargers and sustainers of the estate. Those who rule are those who write.’ Authors of the Estate is a platform created by the people, for the people, a reclamation of authorship and authority. What began as a grassroots publishing project has evolved into a documentary that amplifies those same voices, bringing their words to life and inspiring the next generation of writers from estates across the United Kingdom. What started as a simple idea to help the neighbours of the St. Raphael’s Estate and Chalkhill Estate in north-west London, connected through storytelling, has since grown into a movement. A movement not just to write their stories but to own them. These books shattered stereotypes and allowed residents once seen as statistics or nameless faces to emerge as authors, voices of a