WRITERS UNITED

GRAFFITI is an artistic extreme sport which is won by those who paint the biggest, best and most. Their prize is the admiration and respect of other graffiti writers. Writers United Football Club (WUFC) is a winning crew. These six young men have written their names on thousands of subway cars and walls. WUFC charge their letters with attitude by twisting and turning them until they receive a personal style. Their train pieces are given life as they travel through our cities. Excitement, creativity, affirmation and camaraderie are important elements in a lifestyle that bears the risk of mortal danger and imprisonment.

The book Writers United paints an intimate portrait of the members of one of the world's most notorious graffiti crews, Writers United Football Club (WUFC). Six members, with entirely different personalities and one common goal. Since the creation of WUFC in an indoor soccer hall in the Stockholm suburb of Nacka eleven years ago, they have written their name on thousands of trains and walls across Europe. Like rock musicians, graffiti writers invest their work with style and attitude, and just like in any successful band, each member of WUFC has a specific role. Here, hyperactive graffiti writers Uzi and Que take the lead. Journalist Björn Almqvist and photographer Emil Hagelin have been following WUFC and some of their friends for several years. The reader will encounter a new world through exhaustive interviews and direct reports. We follow the writers from making preparations in their homes to descending into dark tunnels to write. They risk injury and fines all year round to see their name on the trains. Their lifestyle can be hard to understand. Why do they write, how do they see their work, and what sort of people are they really? The text and atmospheric, highly-charged photographs in Writers United offer a better idea of what graffiti is really all about. As photographer Emil Hagelin says: "Most graffiti books concentrate on the pieces themselves. We wanted to show what their lives look like, and how graffiti appears on Joe Blow's wall or the subway train he takes to work every morning."