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Iain Sinclair

Born

in Cardiff, Wales, The United Kingdom

June 11, 1943

Genre

Literature & Fiction

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Iain Sinclair is a British writer and film maker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.

Sinclair's education includes studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus, the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).

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 avantgarde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such as 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 Iain Sinclair is a British writer and film maker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.

Sinclair's education includes studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus, the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).

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 avantgarde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such as 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. 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.

One of his most recent works and part of a series 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, 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.

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 and the London Psychogeographical Association. 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.

In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.

Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, in the London Borough of Hackney, and has a flat in Hastings, East Sussex.

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330 posts
Iain Sinclair's Blog

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London Orbital Named a Top 21st Century Book by The Observer

On December 18, 2025, The Observer posted on its website the list of the 25 best books for the first quarter of the 21st century. Readers also get a chance...

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Iain Sinclair’s books

Average rating: 3.65 · 6,544 ratings · 899 reviews · 127 distinct works • Similar authors

	London Orbital 3.69 avg rating — 866 ratings — published 2002 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London 3.91 avg rating — 410 ratings — published 1997 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings 3.62 avg rating — 391 ratings — published 1987 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Last London: True Fictions from an Unreal City 3.47 avg rating — 309 ratings — published 2017 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report by Iain Sinclair, Oona Grimes (Illustrator) 3.61 avg rating — 292 ratings — published 2009 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Downriver 3.54 avg rating — 285 ratings — published 1991 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	London Overground: A Day's Walk Around the Ginger Line 3.30 avg rating — 299 ratings — published 2015 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	London: City of Disappearances 3.73 avg rating — 217 ratings — published 2006 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dining on Stones 3.07 avg rating — 227 ratings — published 2004 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Slow Chocolate Autopsy by Iain Sinclair, Dave McKean (Illustrator) 3.26 avg rating — 196 ratings — published 1997 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Iain Sinclair

London (3 books)
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Iain Sinclair

3.62 avg rating — 768 ratings

Quotes by Iain Sinclair (?)

“The suicide hour of cold coffee and alien voices on the radio.”
― Iain Sinclair, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

11 likes

“Why not add another yarn? That’s all we are in the end, any of us, a couple of dozen unreliable stories.”
― Iain Sinclair, Landor's Tower: or, Imaginary Conversations

11 likes

“The faster we walk, the more ground we lose.”
― Iain Sinclair, Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London

9 likes

See all Iain Sinclair's quotes »

Polls

What would you like to read in June?

Mr. Vertigo - Paul Auster

44 votes, 41.5%

Jealousy - Alain Robbe-Grillet

37 votes, 34.9%

Dining on Stones - Iain Sinclair

25 votes, 23.6%

106 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Book Challenge: Stephanie's 2009 Book Challenge - Finished (almost)	7	275	Dec 31, 2009 10:13AM
Reading with Style: SU 2014 Author Chains	46	161	Aug 02, 2014 03:03PM
Something Old, So...: August 2014 TBR Takedown Challenge	24	20	Aug 30, 2014 01:28PM
Nothing But Readi...: Team Butterfly	319	255	Aug 31, 2014 12:10PM
Reading with Style: SU 2014 RwS Completed Tasks - Summer 2014	1189	146	Aug 31, 2014 09:03PM
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Short modern novel. Man called John driving around m25 worried about business move with warehouse of potatoes. Multiple flashbacks including giving food poisening to people at a church concert because he didn't buy organic strawberries [s]	5	123	Oct 20, 2014 01:10AM

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Iain Sinclair’s Followers (347)

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Iain Sinclair

330 postsIain Sinclair's Blog

London Orbital Named a Top 21st Century Book by The Observer

Combine EditionsIain Sinclair’s books

Series by Iain Sinclair

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Videos

330 posts
Iain Sinclair's Blog

Combine Editions
Iain Sinclair’s books