Iain Sinclair | |
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 Sinclair and Alan Moore at the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2011 | |
| Born | 11 June 1943 Cardiff, Wales |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Cheltenham College |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Dublin |
| Period | 1967–present |
| Notable works | Downriver |
| Website | |
| www | |
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.
Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educated at Cheltenham College, [1] a boarding school for boys, followed by Trinity College, Dublin (where he edited Icarus ). [2] He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).
Sinclair's early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own small press, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) connected with the British avant garde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such as Edward Dorn, J. H. Prynne, Douglas Oliver, Peter Ackroyd 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 .[ citation needed ]
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 and the Jack the Ripper murders (here attributed to the physician William Gull).[ citation needed ]
Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel Downriver (1991), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1992 Encore Award. It envisages the UK under the rule of 'the Widow', a grotesque version of Margaret Thatcher as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes a one-party state in a fifth term. Radon Daughters , a novel influenced by the work of William Hope Hodgson, formed the third part of a trilogy with White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and Downriver.[ citation needed ]
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, 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, Kathy Acker and Howard Marks.[ citation needed ]
Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. [3] In October 2018, the University of Surrey reported that Sinclair had been appointed "distinguished writer in residence" with their School of Literature and Languages. [4] In 2013 he became a visiting professor at the University for the Creative Arts. [5] In an interview with This Week in Science , William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author. [6]
A significant proportion of Sinclair's work has consisted of an ambitious and elaborate literary recuperation of the so-called occultist psychogeography of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include Will Self, Stewart Home, Michael Moorcock, Aidan Andrew Dun 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, at Fairmead House, High Beach, in Epping Forest in Essex, to his home in Helpston, near Peterborough. Sinclair also writes about Claybury Asylum, another psychiatric hospital 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 as an excuse to militarize London while forcing the poorest citizens out of their homes. [7] 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." [8] 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.[ citation needed ]
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. [9] 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." [8]
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. [10] 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 focused on his rediscovery and appreciation of these writers, often while working as a used book dealer.
In June 2019, Sinclair travelled to Lima 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, and poet and translator Adolfo Barberá del Rosal, the journey was expected to result in a range of artistic responses including podcasts, film and various books. [11] The journey was partly funded by the British Film Institute's documentary fund and part by crowdfunding. The expedition provided material for an essay-feature film entitled The Gold Machine , released in 2022. [12] A book by Sinclair with the same title was also published in 2021. [13] A small selection of prose-poetry inspired by the trip was published by Earthbound Press.[ citation needed ]
Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, 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, East Sussex. [14]
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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:
Arthur Machen was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." He is also well known for "The Bowmen", a short story that was widely read as fact, creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
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 revolutionary groups influenced by Marxist and anarchist theory as well as the attitudes and methods of Dadaists and Surrealists. In 1955, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." One of the key tactics for exploring psychogeography is the loosely defined urban walking practice known as the dérive. As a practice and theory, psychogeography has influenced a broad set of cultural actors, including artists, activists and academics.
The London Psychogeographical Association (LPA), sometimes referred to as the London Psychogeographical Committee, is an organisation devoted to psychogeography. The LPA is perhaps best understood in the context of psychogeographical praxis.
Nicholas Moore was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, whose reputation stood as high as Dylan Thomas’s. He later dropped out of the literary world.
Denise Riley is an English poet and philosopher.
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer. He has written novels, poetry, plays, short stories, and essays. Andri is also a director and producer of three documentary films that have premiered in IDFA and CPH:DOX. His work has been published or performed in more than 40 countries.
Alan Ansen was an American poet, playwright, and associate of Beat Generation writers. He was a widely read scholar who knew many languages. Ansen grew up on Long Island and was educated at Harvard. He worked as W. H. Auden's secretary and research assistant in 1948–49; he was the main author of the chronological tables in Auden's The Portable Greek Reader and Poets of the English Language.
Chris Petit 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 Unsuitable Job for a Woman was entered into the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival. His films often have a strong element of psychogeography, and he has worked frequently with the writer Iain Sinclair. He has also written a number of novels, including Robinson (1993).
Barry Burman (1943–2001) was an English figurative artist known for his dark and often disturbing subject matter. He was a successful as an artist and teacher. He took an overdose and died aged 57.
East End literature comprises novels, short stories, plays, poetry, films, and non-fictional writings set in the East End of London. Crime, poverty, vice, sexual transgression, drugs, class-conflict and multi-cultural encounters and fantasies involving Jews, Chinamen and Indian immigrants are major themes.
Martin Stone was an English guitarist and rare book dealer. He was a longtime resident of Fingest in Buckinghamshire and, latterly, Paris.
Francis James Joseph Raphael Delaney was an Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was the author of The New York Times best-seller Ireland, the non-fiction book Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea and many other works of fiction, non-fiction and collections. He was born in Thomastown, Tipperary, Ireland.
The East End of London in popular culture covers aspects of popular culture within the area of the East End of London. The area is roughly that covered by the modern London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and parts of the south of the London Borough of Hackney.
Andrew Kötting is a British artist, writer, and filmmaker.
John Muckle is a British writer who has published fiction, poetry and literary criticism.
Brian Hinton, MBE is an English poet and musicologist. In June 2006 he was honoured in H. M. the Queen's Birthday Honours List with an MBE for services to the Arts.
Peter Ackroyd 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 Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.
Suicide Bridge is a novel by Iain Sinclair.
Richard Appignanesi is a Canadian writer and editor. He was the originating editor of the internationally successful illustrated For Beginners book series, as well as the author of several of the series' texts. He is a founding publisher and editor of Icon Books. He was founding editor of the Manga Shakespeare series. He is a former executive editor of the journal Third Text, and reviews editor of the policy studies journal Futures.
London is a 1994 British essay film written and directed by Patrick Keiller, narrated by Paul Scofield.
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