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

Biography

Education

Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educated at Cheltenham College, a boarding school for boys, followed by Trinity College, Dublin (where he edited '' Icarus''). He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art ( University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).

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,

Albion Village Press Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, recently within the influences of psychogeography. Biography Education Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educate ...

. He was (and remains) connected with the British avant garde 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,

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 are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalized form as characters. Later, taking over from John Muckle, Sinclair edited the Paladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthology '' Conductors of Chaos''. His early books '' Lud Heat'' (1975) and '' Suicide Bridge'' (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's ''

A Study in Scarlet ''A Study in Scarlet'' is an 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in literature. The book's title d ...

'' 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 ...

murders (here attributed to the physician

William Gull Sir William Withey Gull, 1st Baronet (31 December 181629 January 1890) was an English physician. Of modest family origins, he established a lucrative private practice and served as Governor of Guy's Hospital, Fullerian Professor of Physiolog ...

). Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel ''

Downriver Downriver is the unofficial name for a collection of 18 cities and townships in Wayne County, Michigan, south of Detroit, along the western shore of the Detroit River. The place is sometimes referred to as South Detroit. Etymology The name ...

'' (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, U ...

and the 1992

Encore Award The £10,000 Encore Award for the best second novel was first awarded in 1990. It is sponsored by Lucy Astor. The award fills a niche in the catalogue of literary prizes by celebrating the achievement of outstanding second novels, often neglecte ...

. 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 parties ...

in a fifth term. ''

Radon Daughters Radon is a chemical element with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas. It occurs naturally in minute quantities as an intermediate step in the normal radioactive decay chains thr ...

'', 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. In 1997, he collaborated with

Chris Petit Chris Petit (born 17 June 1949) is an English novelist and filmmaker. During the 1970s he was Film Editor for ''Time Out'' and wrote in ''Melody Maker''. His first film was the cult British road movie '' Radio On'', while his 1982 film ''An Unsu ...

, sculptor Steve Dilworth, 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 Kevin Llewellyn Callan (born 24 March 1962), better known as Stewart Home, is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. His novels include the non-narrative '' 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess'' (2002), a ...

Kathy Acker Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood tr ...

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'',

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 ...

ist psychogeography of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include

Will Self William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Sel ...

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

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 John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th ce ...

'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 psychiatry ...

, at Fairmead House,

High Beach High Beach (or High Beech) is a village inside Epping Forest in south-west Essex, England. Part of Waltham Abbey, the village is within the Epping Forest District and the ward of Waltham Abbey High Beach, and lies approximately north-east of ...

, 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 Londo ...

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 C ...

, 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 until ...

. Sinclair also writes about

Claybury Asylum Claybury Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Woodford Bridge, London. It was built to a design by the English architect George Thomas Hine who was a prolific Victorian architect of hospital buildings. It was opened in 1893 making it the Fifth ...

, 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 ''Rodinsky's Room'' () is a non-fiction book by the British authors Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair, first published by Granta Books in 1999. Sections are written alternately by each author. It tells the story of Lichtenstein's attempts to u ...

'', a collaboration with the artist

Rachel Lichtenstein Rachel Lichtenstein is a writer, artist and archivist. In 1999 she wrote ''Rodinsky's Room'' with Iain Sinclair, and since then she has published ''Rodinsky's Whitechapel'' (1999) and ''On Brick Lane'' (2007). This last will be joined by two other ...

. Sinclair's book ''Ghost Milk'' criticized the British government for using the 2012 Summer Olympics 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 and John Healy. His 2016 work ''

My Favourite London Devils My or MY may refer to: Arts and entertainment * My (radio station), a Malaysian radio station * Little My, a fictional character in the Moomins universe * ''My'' (album), by Edyta Górniak * ''My'' (EP), by Cho Mi-yeon Business * Market ...

'' 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 t ...

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

Farne The Farne Islands are a group of islands off the coast of Northumberland, England. The group has between 15 and 20 islands depending on the level of the tide.

, 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 bor ...

, and poet and translator

Adolfo Barberá del Rosal Adolfo may refer to: * Adolfo, São Paulo, a Brazilian municipality * Adolfo (designer), Cuban-born American fashion designer * Adolfo or Adolf, a given name See also

* {{dab ...

, 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 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'', 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 Haggerston is a locale in East London, England, centred approximately on Great Cambridge Street (now renamed Queensbridge Road). It is within the London Borough of Hackney and is considered to be a part of London's East End. It is about 3.1 miles ...

, in the London Borough of Hackney and has a flat in Marine Court, 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 origina ...

, 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 Genera ...

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

'', 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 ''Slow Chocolate Autopsy: Incidents from the Notorious Career of Norton, Prisoner of London'' is a 1997 novel by Iain Sinclair and illustrated by Dave McKean. It concerns Norton who is trapped in space, within London's city limits, but not in t ...

'', fiction, 1997 * ''Crash'', essay, 1999 * ''Liquid City'', non-fiction, 1999 (with Marc Atkins) * ''

'', non-fiction, 1999 (with

) * ''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 Marc Atkins) * ''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 Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

) * ''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 ''Beat Scene'' is a UK-based magazine dedicated to the work, the history and the cultural influences of the Beat Generation. As well the best known and more obscure Beat novelists and poets this has included artists, musicians filmmakers and publ ...

, 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 Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name * Chris Abani (born 1966), Ni ...

)

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 David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

, Andrew Kötting, Jem Finer,

Claudia Barton Claudia may refer to: People Ancient Romans *Any woman from the Roman Claudia gens * Claudia (vestal), a Vestal Virgin who protected her father Appius Claudius Pulcher in 143 BC * Claudia Augusta (63–63 AD), infant daughter of Nero by his secon ...

, (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 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...

, (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 ''The Literary Encyclopedia'' is an online reference work first published in October 2000. It was founded as an innovative project designed to bring the benefits of information technology to what at the time was still a largely conservative li ...

''
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