Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair FRSL 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, a boarding independent school for boys, in the spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, in the West of England, followed by Trinity College, Dublin. He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the London School of Film Technique. In 2013 he became a Visiting Professor at the University for the Creative Arts.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 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 and Suicide Bridge were a mixture of essay, fiction and poetry; they were followed by White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, 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.
Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel Downriver, 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 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.
In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. Sinclair commented: "I have always admired the RSPCA. They do a lot of good work."
Psychogeography
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 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 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.
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 distinctive 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 that it is unrecognisable.". This marked the culmination of a series of works which 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, 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.Distinguished Writer in Residence
In October 2018 the University of Surrey reported that Sinclair had been appointed Distinguished Writer in Residence with their School of Literature and Languages. Sinclair responded: "My work has always been about responding to place, and the challenge of working somewhere new and unknown is exciting. I look forward to learning just as much as I teach and feel that a useful dialogue has already begun, between students, myself and the location. It's an adventure to be part of this."Peru
In June 2019, Sinclair travelled to Lima to begin retracing the journey of his great-grandfather, Arthur Sinclair to "the source of the Amazon". Arthur's story, part revealed in a leather-bound book owned by the Sinclair family entitled 'In Tropical Lands' involved a trek of uncertain purpose on behalf of 'The Peruvian Corporation'. Travelling with his daughter, Farne, filmmaker Grant Gee, 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's documentary fund and part by crowdfunding. The expedition provided materials for a forthcoming essay-feature film entitled The Gold Machine expected to be released late in 2020. A publication by Sinclair with the same title is also proposed. A small selection of prose-poetry inspired by the trip was published by Earthbound Press.Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, in the London Borough of Hackney, and has a flat in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.
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:| Year | Title | Notes |
| 1967 | Ah! Sunflower | Featuring Allen Ginsberg, Co-Directed by Robert Klinkert |
| 1992 | The Cardinal and the Corpse | Featuring Martin Stone, John Latham, Alan Moore, Driff Field, Brian Catling, Directed by Chris Petit |
| 1997 | The Falconer | Featuring Françoise Lacroix, Peter Whitehead, Stewart Home, Howard Marks, Francis Stuart, Directed by Chris Petit |
| 2000 | Asylum | Featuring Marina Warner, Michael Moorcock, Françoise Lacroix, Directed by Chris Petit |
| 2002 | London Orbital | Directed by Chris Petit |
| 2009 | The London Perambulator | Featuring Nick Papadimitriou, Russell Brand, Will Self, Directed by John Rogers |
| 2012 | Swandown | Featuring Alan Moore, Stewart Lee, Directed by Andrew Kötting |
| 2013 | Featuring Kevin Ring, Directed by Sam Johnson | |
| 2015 | By Our Selves | Featuring Toby Jones, Directed by Andrew Kötting |
| 2016 | London Overground | Featuring Andrew Kötting, Chris Petit, Cathi Unsworth, Bill Parry-Davies, Directed by John Rogers |
| 2017 | Edith Walks | Featuring Alan Moore, Claudia Barton, Jem Finer, Directed by Andrew Kötting |
| 2019 | The Whalebone Box | Featuring Steve Dilworth, Anonymous Bosch, Eden Kötting, Kirsten Norrie, Philip Hoare, Directed by Andrew Kötting |
| 2020 | The Gold Machine | Featuring Farne Sinclair, Directed by Grant Gee |