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Iain Sinclair | |
|---|---|
 Sinclair andAlan Moore at the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2011 | |
| Born | (1943-06-11)11 June 1943 (age 82) Cardiff, Wales |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Cheltenham College |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Dublin |
| Period | 1967–present |
| Notable works | Downriver |
| Website | |
| www | |
Iain SinclairFRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, and influenced bypsychogeography.
Sinclair was born inCardiff, Wales, on 11 June 1943.[1]
From 1956 to 1961, he was educated atCheltenham College,[1] a boarding school for boys, followed byTrinity College, Dublin (where he editedIcarus).[2] He attended theCourtauld Institute of Art and theLondon School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).[1]
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Sinclair's early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his ownsmall press, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) connected with the Britishavant garde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such asEdward Dorn,J. H. Prynne,Douglas Oliver,Peter Ackroyd andBrian Catling are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalised form as characters. Later, taking over fromJohn Muckle, Sinclair edited thePaladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthologyConductors of Chaos.[citation needed]
His early booksLud Heat (1975) andSuicide Bridge (1979) were a mixture of essay, fiction, prose-poetry and poetry; they were followed byWhite Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), a novel juxtaposing the tale of a disreputable band of bookdealers on the hunt for a priceless copy ofArthur Conan Doyle'sA Study in Scarlet and theJack the Ripper murders (here attributed to the physicianWilliam Gull).[citation needed]
Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novelDownriver (1991), which won theJames Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1992Encore Award. It envisages the UK under the rule of 'the Widow', a grotesque version ofMargaret Thatcher as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes aone-party state in a fifth term.Radon Daughters, a novel influenced by the work ofWilliam Hope Hodgson, formed the third part of a trilogy withWhite Chappell, Scarlet Tracings andDownriver.[citation needed]
The volume of essaysLights Out for the Territory gained Sinclair a wider readership by treating the material of his novels in non-fiction form. His essaySorry Meniscus (1999) ridiculed theMillennium Dome. In 1997, he collaborated withChris Petit, sculptorSteve Dilworth, and others to makeThe Falconer, a 56-minute semi-fictional "documentary" film set in London and theOuter Hebrides, about the British underground filmmakerPeter Whitehead. It also featuresStewart Home,Kathy Acker andHoward Marks.[citation needed]
A significant proportion of Sinclair's work has consisted of an ambitious and elaborate literaryrecuperation of the so-calledoccultistpsychogeography of London. Other writers who have mined a similar seam includeWill Self,Stewart Home,Michael Moorcock, andAidan Andrew Dun.
One of a series of works focused around London is the non-fictionLondon 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 theM25, London's outer-ring motorway, on foot. Sinclair followed this withEdge of the Orison in 2005, a psychogeographical reconstruction of the poetJohn Clare's walk from Dr Matthew Allen's privatelunatic asylum, at Fairmead House,High Beach, inEpping Forest in Essex, to his home inHelpston, nearPeterborough. Sinclair also writes aboutClaybury Asylum, anotherpsychiatric hospital in Essex, inRodinsky's Room, a collaboration with the artistRachel Lichtenstein.[citation needed]
Sinclair's bookGhost Milk criticised the British government for using the2012 Summer Olympics as an excuse to militarise London while forcing the poorest citizens out of their homes.[3] 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 publishedThe 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."[4] 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.[5] 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."[4]
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.[6] 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 asRobert Westerby,Roland Camberton,Alexander Baron andJohn Healy. His 2016 workMy Favourite London Devils focused on his rediscovery and appreciation of these writers, often while working as a used book dealer.[citation needed]
In June 2019, Sinclair travelled toLima to begin retracing the journey of his great-grandfather, Arthur Sinclair, to "thesource of the Amazon" as described in the 1895 bookIn Tropical Lands.[7] Travelling with his daughter,Farne, filmmakerGrant Gee, and poet and translatorAdolfo Barberá del Rosal, the journey was expected to result in a range of artistic responses including podcasts, film and various books.[8] The journey was partly funded by theBritish Film Institute's documentary fund and part by crowdfunding. The expedition provided material for an essay-feature film entitledThe Gold Machine, released in 2022.[9] A book by Sinclair with the same title was also published in 2021.[10] A small selection of prose-poetry inspired by the trip was published by Earthbound Press.[citation needed]
In an interview withThis Week in Science in 2004,William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.[11]
Sinclair was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature in 2009.[12]
In 2013 he became a visiting professor at theUniversity for the Creative Arts.[13]
In October 2018, theUniversity of Surrey reported that Sinclair had been appointed "distinguished writer in residence" with their School of Literature and Languages.[14]
As of 2010[update] Sinclair lived inHaggerston, in theLondon Borough of Hackney, and had a flat inMarine Court, theart deco building modelled after an ocean liner inSt Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.[15]
| Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Iain Sinclair" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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:
