Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair
Sinclair and Alan Moore at the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2011
Born (1943-06-11) 11 June 1943
Cardiff, Wales
Nationality British
Education Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire
Alma mater Trinity College, Dublin
Period 1967–present
Notable works Downriver
Website
www.iainsinclair.org.uk

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

Education

Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956–1961, he was educated at Cheltenham College,[1] a boarding independent school for boys (now co-educational), in the spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, in the West of England, 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). In 2013 he became a Visiting Professor at the University for the Creative Arts.[3]

Life and work

Development as author

His early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own small press, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) closely 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 on, 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 and the Jack the Ripper 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 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 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) ridicules 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.

Psychogeography

Much of Sinclair's recent work consists 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 and the London Psychogeographical Association.

One of a series of works focused around London is the non-fiction London Orbital; the hard cover edition 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 the centre of 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.

In 2008 he wrote the introduction to Wide Boys Never Work, the London Books reissue of Robert Westerby's classic London low-life novel. Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report followed in 2009.

Sinclair's book Ghost Milk criticizes the British government for using the 2012 Summer Olympics as an excuse to militarize London while forcing the poorest citizens out of their homes.[4]

In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.[5] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.[6] Sinclair commented: "I have always admired the RSPCA. They do a lot of good work."

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[7]. These writers predominantly focus on London, and 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.

Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, in the London Borough of Hackney, and has a flat in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.

Bibliography

  • Back Garden Poems, poetry, 1970
  • The Kodak Mantra Diaries: Allen Ginsberg 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)
  • 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
  • Lights out for the territory: 9 Excursions in the secret history of London. Granta Books. 1997. ISBN 1-86207-009-1. , non-fiction
  • Slow Chocolate Autopsy, fiction, 1997
  • Crash, essay, 1999
  • Liquid City, non-fiction, 1999 (with Marc Atkins)
  • 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 (paperback edition 2003)
  • White Goods, poems, essays, fictions, 2002
  • Saddling The Rabbit, poetry, 2002 Etruscan Books
  • The Verbals, in conversation with Kevin Jackson, 2003 Worple Press
  • 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., 2006[8]
  • 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

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:

Film performances
Year Title Notes
1967 Ah! Sunflower Co-Director with Robert Klinkert, Featuring Allen Ginsberg
1992 The Cardinal and the Corpse Directed by Chris Petit
1998 The Falconer Directed by Chris Petit
2000 Asylum Directed by Chris Petit
2002 London Orbital Directed by Chris Petit
2009 The London Perambulator Directed by John Rogers
2012 Swandown Directed by Andrew Kötting
2015 By Our Selves Featuring Toby Jones, Directed by Andrew Kötting
2016 London Overground Featuring Andrew Kötting, Directed by John Rogers
2017 Edith Walks Featuring Alan Moore, Claudia Barton, Jem Finer, Directed by Andrew Kötting

Notes

  1. ↑ "Iain Sinclair - poet, novelist, editor, filmmaker, publisher, playwright, book-dealer". Anachron.org. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  2. ↑ "Goldmark Iain Sinclair Scholarship". Goldmark. Archived from the original on 21 January 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  3. ↑ http://www.uca.ac.uk/galleries/gallery-archive/swandown/
  4. ↑ For U.K. Author, Games A 'Smoke And Circuses' Affair
  5. ↑ Gibson, William. Interview. This Week in Science. 2004-02-03. (MP3 recording)
  6. ↑ "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010. Retrieved 10 August 2010.
  7. ↑ Coverley, Merlin (2012). London Writing.
  8. ↑ Disappearances can be deceptive, The Times, 7 October 2006

Interviews

  • When In Doubt, Quote Ballard Interview with Iain Sinclair about psychogeography, writing, and J. G. Ballard
  • Londonist interview
  • 3:AM interview
  • Robert Bond, Iain Sinclair, Salt Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84471-100-0
  • Swandown
  • An interview on Notebook on Cities and Culture
  • Of Film and Smoke, Rain Taxi Interview with Iain Sinclair about epic journeys, American Smoke, and escaping London
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