Iain Sinclair

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elec ...

(born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, recently within the influences of

psychogeography Psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International, which were revolution ...

Biography

Education

Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educated at

Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent School Day and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Hugget ...

, a boarding school for boys, followed by

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

(where he edited ''

Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; grc, Ἴκαρος, Íkaros, ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos sus ...

''). He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art (

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

), and the London School of Film Technique (now the

London Film School London Film School (LFS) is a film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, neighbouring Soho, a hub of the UK film industry. It is the oldest film school in the UK.

Development as author

Iain Sinclair speaking at Housmans book shop in London 2013 (cropped)

Sinclair's early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own

small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. Independent press is general ...

, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) connected with the British

avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical D ...

poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such as

Edward Dorn Edward Merton Dorn (April 2, 1929 – December 10, 1999, aged 70) was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is '' ''Gunslinger'. Overview Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois. ...

, J. H. Prynne,

Douglas Oliver Douglas Dunlop Oliver (14 September 1937 – 21 April 2000) was a poet, novelist, editor, and educator. The author of more than a dozen works, Oliver came into poetry not as an academic but through a career in journalism, notably in Cambridge, Par ...

Peter Ackroyd Peter Ackroyd (born 5 October 1949) is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William ...

and

Brian Catling Brian Catling (23 October 1948 – 26 September 2022) was a British sculptor, poet, novelist, film maker and performance artist. He was educated at North East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. He held the post of Professor of Fi ...

are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalized form as characters. Later, taking over from

John Muckle John Muckle (born 9 December 1954) is a British writer who has published fiction, poetry and literary criticism. Born in Kingston-upon-Thames, he grew up in the village of Cobham, Surrey. After qualifying as a teacher and working in London FE co ...

, Sinclair edited the Paladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthology ''

Conductors of Chaos ''Conductors of Chaos: A Poetry Anthology'' is a poetry anthology edited by Iain Sinclair, and published in the United Kingdom in 1996 by Picador. Sinclair in the Introduction wrote that "The secret history of ... 'the British Poetry Revival' . ...

''. His early books '' Lud Heat'' (1975) and ''

Suicide Bridge A suicide bridge is a bridge used frequently by people to end their lives, most typically by jumping off and into the water or ground below. A fall from the height of a tall bridge into water may be fatal, although some people have survived jump ...

'' (1979) were a mixture of essay, fiction and poetry; they were followed by ''White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings'' (1987), a novel juxtaposing the tale of a disreputable band of bookdealers on the hunt for a priceless copy of

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

's '' A Study in Scarlet'' and the

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer w ...

murders (here attributed to the physician William Gull). Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel '' Downriver'' (1991), which won the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

and the 1992 Encore Award. It envisages the UK under the rule of 'the Widow', a grotesque version of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes a

one-party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other partie ...

in a fifth term. '' Radon Daughters'', a novel influenced by the work of

William Hope Hodgson William Hope Hodgson (15 November 1877 – 19 April 1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and sci ...

, formed the third part of a trilogy with ''White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings'' and ''Downriver.'' The volume of essays ''Lights Out for the Territory'' gained Sinclair a wider readership by treating the material of his novels in non-fiction form. His essay ''Sorry Meniscus'' (1999) ridiculed the

Millennium Dome The Millennium Dome was the original name of the large dome-shaped building on the Greenwich Peninsula in South East London, England, which housed a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium. As of 2022, it is the ni ...

. In 1997, he collaborated with Chris Petit, sculptor

Steve Dilworth Steve Dilworth was born in Yorkshire in 1949 and studied sculpture at Maidstone College of Art. Since 1983, he has lived and worked on the Isle of Harris, Scotland. Dilworth is known for his use of 'once living and found material, often held ins ...

, and others to make ''The Falconer'', a 56-minute semi-fictional "documentary" film set in London and the Outer Hebrides, about the British underground filmmaker Peter Whitehead. It also features Stewart Home, Kathy Acker and Howard Marks. Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, ele ...

in 2009. In October 2018, the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following recommendations in the Robbins Report. The institu ...

reported that Sinclair had been appointed "distinguished writer in residence" with their School of Literature and Languages. In 2013 he became a visiting professor at the

University for the Creative Arts The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in the south of England. It was formed in 2005 as University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester when the Kent Ins ...

. In an interview with ''

This Week in Science Kirsten "Kiki" Sanford is an American neurophysiologist and science communicator. After working at the University of California, Davis as a research scientist, she left research work to pursue a career in science communication. Her work has in ...

'',

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, hi ...

said that Sinclair was his favourite author.

Psychogeography

A significant proportion of Sinclair's work has consisted of an ambitious and elaborate literary recuperation of the so-called

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

ist

of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include Will Self, Stewart Home,

Michael Moorcock Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) is an English writer, best-known for science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worke ...

and the London Psychogeographical Association. One of a series of works focused around London is the non-fiction ''London Orbital'', the hardcover edition of which was published in 2002, along with a documentary film of the same name and subject. It describes a series of trips he took tracing the M25, London's outer-ring motorway, on foot. Sinclair followed this with ''Edge of the Orison'' in 2005, a psychogeographical reconstruction of the poet John Clare's walk from Dr Matthew Allen's private

lunatic asylum The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatr ...

, at Fairmead House, High Beach, in

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London ...

in Essex, to his home in

Helpston Helpston (also, formerly, "Helpstone") is an English village formerly in the Soke of Peterborough, geographically in Northamptonshire, subsequently (1965–1974) in Huntingdon and Peterborough, then in Cambridgeshire, and administered by the Cit ...

, near

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...

. Sinclair also writes about Claybury Asylum, another

psychiatric hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociat ...

in Essex, in '' Rodinsky's Room'', a collaboration with the artist Rachel Lichtenstein. Sinclair's book ''Ghost Milk'' criticized the British government for using the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, th ...

as an excuse to militarize London while forcing the poorest citizens out of their homes. The 2012 games mark a shift in Sinclair's psychogeographical writing, moving to a more documentary mode with fewer semi-fictional elements included in his work. In 2017 Sinclair published ''The Last London'', a conscious move away from writing about "A city so much estranged from its earlier identities (always shifting and revising) that it is unrecognisable." This marked the culmination of a series of works that detailed Sinclair's attempts to grasp the changing nature of London and to re-map his own experiences of the city. Sinclair's own view of psychogeography later echoed many of the earlier criticisms of his work which focused on the commodification of 'heritage zones' in less affluent areas of the city. In a 2016 interview, he stated: "I don’t think there is any more than can be said. The topic has outlived its usefulness and become a brand."

''The Reforgotten''

A consistent theme in Sinclair's non-fiction and semi-fictional works has been the rediscovery of writers who enjoyed success in the early 20th century, but have been largely forgotten. These writers predominantly focus on London, particularly the East London districts in which Sinclair has lived and worked. He has written about, championed and contributed introductory notes to novels by authors such as Robert Westerby, Roland Camberton,

Alexander Baron Alexander Baron ( – ) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day, ''From the City, from The Plough'' (1948), and his London novel ''The Lowlife'' (1963). Early life Baron's father was B ...

and John Healy. His 2016 work '' My Favourite London Devils'' focused on his rediscovery and appreciation of these writers, often while working as a used book dealer.

Peru

In June 2019, Sinclair travelled to

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

to begin retracing the journey of his great-grandfather, Arthur Sinclair, to "the source of the Amazon". Travelling with his daughter, Farne, filmmaker

Grant Gee Grant Robert Gee (born 24 October 1964) is a British film maker, photographer and cinematographer. He is most noted for his 1998 documentary '' Meeting People Is Easy'' about the British alternative rock group Radiohead. Early life Gee was born ...

, and poet and translator Adolfo Barberá del Rosal, the journey is expected to result in a range of artistic responses including podcasts, film and various books. The journey was partly funded by the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

's documentary fund and part by crowdfunding. The expedition provided material for an essay-feature film entitled '' The Gold Machine'', released in 2022. A book by Sinclair with the same title was also published in 2021. A small selection of prose-poetry inspired by the trip was published by Earthbound Press.

Personal life

Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, in the

London Borough of Hackney London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

and has a flat in

Marine Court Marine Court is a Grade II listed Streamline Moderne (Art Deco) apartment block on the seafront of St Leonards-on-Sea, part of the town and borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. The block was built between 1936 and 1938 and was modelled ...

, the art-deco building modelled after an ocean liner in

St Leonards-on-Sea St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origi ...

, East Sussex.

Bibliography

* ''Back Garden Poems'', poetry, 1970 * ''The Kodak Mantra Diaries:

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

in London'', documentary, 1971 * ''Muscat's Wurm'', poetry, 1972 * ''The Birth Rug'', poetry, 1973 * ''Lud Heat'', prose and poetry, 1975 * ''

'', prose and poetry, 1979 * ''Flesh Eggs and Scalp Metal'', poetry, 1983 * ''Autistic poses'', poetry, 1985 * ''Flesh Eggs and Scalp Metal: Selected Poems 1970–1987'', poetry, Paladin, 1987 * ''Significant wreckage'', poetry, 1988 * ''White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings'', fiction, 1987 (originally a limited edition from Goldmark but reprinted by Paladin) * '' Downriver'', novel, 1991 * ''Jack Elam's Other Eye'', poetry, 1991 * ''The Shamanism of Intent'', Goldmark, 1991 * ''Radon Daughters'', novel, 1994 * ''Conductors of Chaos: a Poetry Anthology'', editor 1996 * ''Penguin Modern Poets Volume Ten: Douglas Oliver, Denise Riley, Iain Sinclair'', poetry, 1996 * ''The Ebbing of the Kraft'', poetry, 1997 * , non-fiction * '' Slow Chocolate Autopsy'', fiction, 1997 * ''Crash'', essay, 1999 * ''Liquid City'', non-fiction, 1999 (with

Marc Atkins Marc Atkins is an English artist, photographer, filmmaker and poet, born in 1962, best known for his photography of cities and nudes, also commercially for music album and book covers. Background Atkins attended Staffordshire College of Art ...

) * '' Rodinsky's Room'', non-fiction, 1999 (with Rachel Lichtenstein) * ''Sorry Meniscus'', essay, Profile Books, 1999 * ''Landor's Tower'', novel, 2001 * ''London Orbital'', non-fiction, 2002 * ''White Goods'', poems, essays, fictions, 2002 * ''Saddling The Rabbit'', poetry, 2002 Etruscan Books * ''The Verbals - in conversation with Kevin Jackson'', Worple Press, 2003 * ''Dining on Stones'', novel, 2004 * ''Edge of the Orison: In the Traces of John Clare's 'Journey Out Of Essex, non-fiction, 2005 * ''The Firewall (selected poems 1979 – 2006)'', poetry, Etruscan Books, paperback, 2006 * ''Buried At Sea'', Worple Press, paperback, 2006 * '' London: City of Disappearances'', editor, various essays about London psychogeography etc., 2006Disappearances can be deceptive
''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'', 7 October 2006 * ''Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report'', non-fiction, 2009 * “Sickening”, in ''Restless Cities'', Edited by M. Beaumont and G. Dart, London: Verso, 2010. 257–276. * ''Ghost Milk'', non-fiction (memoir), 2011 * ''Blake's London: The Topographical Sublime'', The Swedenborg Society, 2012 * ''Kitkitdizze... Seeing Gary Snyder'', Beat Scene, January 2013 * ''Swimming To Heaven: The Lost Rivers of London'', The Swedenborg Society, 2013 * ''Austerlitz and After: Tracking Sebald'', chapter deleted from 'American Smoke', Test Centre, 2013 * ''Red Eye'', poetry, Test Centre, 2013 * ''Objects of Obscure Desire'', Goldmark, 2013 (illustrated by Sarah Simblet) * ''American Smoke: Journeys to the End of the Light'', 2014 * ''Cowboy / Deleted File'', chapter deleted from 'American Smoke', Test Centre, 2014 * ''London Overground: A Day's Walk around the Ginger Line'', 2015 * ''Black Apples of Gower'', Little Toller Books, 2015 * ''Westering'', Test Centre, 2015 * ''Liquid City'', Expanded edition, non-fiction, Reaktion Books, 2016 (with

) * ''Seeschlange'', Equipage, 2016 * ''My Favourite London Devils: A Gazetteer of Encounters with Local Scribes, Elective Shamen & Unsponsored Keepers of the Sacred Flame'', Tangerine Press, 2016 * ''The Last London: True Fictions from an Unreal City'', Oneworld Publications, 2017 * ''Living with Buildings: Walking with Ghosts – On Health and Architecture'', Wellcome, 2018 * ''Dark Before Dark'', Tangerine Press, 2019 (photography by Anonymous Bosch) * ''Fever Hammer Yellow – Earthbound Poetry Series Vol.1 No.7'', Earthbound Press, 2020 * ''Our Late Familiars'' – Goldmark, 2020 (photography by Ian Wilkinson) * ''The Gold Machine - In the Tracks of the Mule Dancers'' - Oneworld Publications, 2021 * ''The Gold Machine Beats: A Jungle Death Photo Album'' - Beat Scene, 2021 * * (with artwork by

Dave McKean David McKean (born 29 December 1963) is an English illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, graphic designer, filmmaker and musician. His work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art, and sculp ...

, postscript by Chris McCabe)

Filmography

As well as writing and directing a number of documentary and semi-documentary films, Sinclair has appeared as himself in a number of films by other directors:

Discography

* 1998 - ''Downriver'', (UK, King Mob Records, CD) * 2004 - ''Dead Lead Office - Poems 1970-2004'', (UK, Optic Nerve, CD) * 2012 - ''Stone Tape Shuffle'', (UK, Test Centre, LP) * 2016 - ''Edith Field Recordings'' with David Aylward, Anonymous Bosch,

Andrew Kötting Andrew Kötting (born 16 December 1959) is a British artist, writer, and filmmaker. He made numerous experimental short films, which were awarded prizes at international film festivals. ''Gallivant'', was his first feature film, a road/home film ...

Jem Finer Jeremy Max Finer (born 20 July 1955) is an English musician, artist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Pogues. Life and career Finer was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, the son of political scientist Samuel Finer. He took ...

, Claudia Barton, (UK, BadBloodandSibyl, CD) * 2016 - ''London Overground'' with Standard Planets, (UK, Fin-A-Dee Six Records, 12" Single) * 2021 - ''Dark Before Dark'' with The London Experimental Ensemble, (USA, 577 Records, CD)

References

External links

Iain Sinclair Official Unofficial WebSite (Sanctioned by Author)

"A Small Catalogue of the Uncurated" by Sinclair
(archived 2009-11-24) at ''Untitled Books''
"Iain Sinclair"
(2002) in '' The Literary Encyclopedia''
Iain Sinclair
at '' Complete Review''
"Reader Flattery – Iain Sinclair and the Colonisation of East London"
(2006), a critical analysis by John Barker in ''Mute'' (MetaMute.org) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Iain 1943 births Living people Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Alumni of the London Film School Alumni of Trinity College Dublin British art critics British Poetry Revival Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients People associated with The Institute for Cultural Research People educated at Cheltenham College People from the London Borough of Hackney Psychogeographers Welsh novelists Welsh poets Writers from Cardiff