Iain Sinclair – författare

Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire is Iain Sinclair's foray into one of London's most fascinating boroughs'As detailed and as complex as a historical map, taking the reader hither and thither with no care as to which might be the most direct route'ObserverHackney, That Rose-Red Empire is Iain Sinclair's personal record of his north-east London home in which he has lived for forty years. It is a documentary fiction, seeking to capture the spirit of place, before Hackney succumbs to mendacious green papers, eco boasts, sponsored public art and the Olympic Park gnawing at its edges. It is a message in a bottle, chucked into the flood of the future.'An explosion of literary fireworks'Peter Ackroyd, The Times'Gloriously sprawling, wonderfully congested, one of the finest books about London in recent decades'Daily Telegraph'Sinclair adopts the roles of pedestrian, pilgrim and poet, magnificently illuminating the borough's historical and spiritual life'The Times'Remarkable, compelling, bristles with unexpected, frequently lurid life. On Sinclair's territory there's nobody to touch him . . . a gonzo Samuel Pepys'Sunday TimesIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

London Orbital is Iain Sinclair's exceptional voyage of discovery into the unloved outskirts of the city'My book of the year. Sentence for sentence, there is no more interesting writer at work in English' John Lanchester, Daily TelegraphEncircling London like a noose, the M25 is a road to nowhere, but when Iain Sinclair sets out to walk this asphalt loop - keeping within the 'acoustic footprints' - he is determined to find out where the journey will lead him. Stumbling upon converted asylums, industrial and retail parks, ring-fenced government institutions and lost villages, Sinclair discovers a Britain of the fringes, a landscape consumed by developers. London Orbital charts this extraordinary trek and round trip of the soul, revealing the country as you've never seen it before.'A magnum opus, my book of the year. I urge you to read it. In fact, if you're a Londoner and haven't read it by the end of next year, I suggest you leave' Will Self, Evening Standard'A journey into the heart of darkness and a fascinating snapshot of who we are, lit by Sinclair's vivid prose. I'm sure it will be read fifty years from now' J. G. Ballard, Observer

Dining on Stones is Iain Sinclair's sharp, edgy mystery of London and its environsAndrew Norton, poet, visionary and hack, is handed a mysterious package that sees him quit London and head out along the A13 on an as yet undefined quest. Holing up in a roadside hotel, unable to make sense of his search, he is haunted by ghosts: of the dead and the not-so dead; demanding wives and ex-wives; East End gangsters; even competing versions of himself. Shifting from Hackney to Hastings and all places in-between, while dissecting a man's fractured psyche piece by piece, Dining on Stones is a puzzle and a quest - for both writer and reader.'Exhilarating, wonderfully funny, greatly unsettling - Sinclair on top form' Daily Telegraph'Prose of almost incantatory power, cut with Chandleresque pithiness' Sunday Times'Spectacular: the work of a man with the power to see things as they are, and magnify that vision with a clarity that is at once hallucinatory and forensic' Independent on SundayIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

A novel about London -- its past, its people, its underbelly and its madness."In this extraordinary work Sinclair combines a spiritual inquest into the Whitechapel Ripper murders and the dark side of the late Victorian imagination with a posse of seedy book dealers hot on the trail of obscure rarities of that period. These ruined and ruthless dandies appear and disappear through a phantasmagoria interspersed with occult conjurings and reflections on the nature of fiction and history" GUARDIAN

Downriver is a brilliant London novel by its foremost chronicler, Iain Sinclair.WINNER OF THE ENCORE AWARD AND THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZEThe Thames runs through Downriver like an open wound, draining the pain and filth of London and its mercurial inhabitants. Commissioned to document the shifting embankments of industry and rampant property speculation, a film crew of magpie scavengers, high-rent lowlife, broken criminals and reborn lunatics picks over the rivers detritus. They examine the wound, hoping to expose the cause of the city's affliction . . .'Remarkable: part apocalyptic documentary, part moth-eaten ghost story, part detective story. Inventive and stylish, Sinclair is one of the most interesting of contemporary novelists' Sunday Times'One of those idiosyncratic literary texts that revivify the language, so darn quotable as to be the reader's delight and the reviewer's nightmare' Guardian'Crazy, dangerous, prophetic' Angela CarterIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

A novel about London -- its past, its people, its underbelly and its madness."In this extraordinary work Sinclair combines a spiritual inquest into the Whitechapel Ripper murders and the dark side of the late Victorian imagination with a posse of seedy book dealers hot on the trail of obscure rarities of that period. These ruined and ruthless dandies appear and disappear through a phantasmagoria interspersed with occult conjurings and reflections on the nature of fiction and history" GUARDIAN

In Ghost Milk Iain Sinclair exposes the dark underbelly of the Olympics 2012 Burrowing under the perimeter fence of the grandest of Grand Projects - the giant myth that is 2012's London Olympics - Ghost Milk explores a landscape under sentence of death and soon to be scorched by riots. This is a road map to a possible future as well as Iain Sinclair's most powerful statement yet on the throwaway impermanence of the present.'Wonderful, sharp, amusing, grippingly atmospheric. One of our most dazzling prose stylists' Daily Telegraph'A scorching diatribe' Independent'Sinclair views London through a distortingly surreal lens; a striking visual poetry and tart black comedy are extracted from even the most hopeless of London locations. For those unfamiliar with Sinclair's work, Ghost Milk is a good place to start' Spectator'Inventive, dazzling, arresting. Sinclair lays bare the human consequences and mourns the disruption of communities, the erasure of history and of a sense of place and continuity. This is Sinclair at his best. He is the archetypal whistleblower, a pricker of vainglorious and self-promoting hyperbole. A superb chronicle of an improbable dream that has descended to a nightmare. It is essential reading for all Londoners curious about their city' Dan Cruickshank, New Statesman'Be warned: Ghost Milk reads like some whimsical meld of the poet Allen Ginsberg, comic books writer Alan Moore and an anarchists' message board. Highly alienating' Evening Standard'A wounding assault' DJ Taylor, Independent on Sunday'Sinclair's literary excavations of London's memory go deeper than anyone's' Time Out'Brilliant' Robert Macfarlane, Guardian Iain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

Downriver is a brilliant London novel by its foremost chronicler, Iain Sinclair.WINNER OF THE ENCORE AWARD AND THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZEThe Thames runs through Downriver like an open wound, draining the pain and filth of London and its mercurial inhabitants. Commissioned to document the shifting embankments of industry and rampant property speculation, a film crew of magpie scavengers, high-rent lowlife, broken criminals and reborn lunatics picks over the rivers detritus. They examine the wound, hoping to expose the cause of the city's affliction . . .'Remarkable: part apocalyptic documentary, part moth-eaten ghost story, part detective story. Inventive and stylish, Sinclair is one of the most interesting of contemporary novelists' Sunday Times'One of those idiosyncratic literary texts that revivify the language, so darn quotable as to be the reader's delight and the reviewer's nightmare' Guardian'Crazy, dangerous, prophetic' Angela CarterIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

In Edge of the Orison the visionary Iain Sinclair walks in the steps of poet John ClareIn 1841 the poet John Clare fled an asylum in Epping Forest and walked eighty miles to his home in Northborough. He was searching for his lost love, Mary Joyce - a woman three years dead ... In 2000 Iain Sinclair set out to recreate Clare's walk away from madness. He wanted to understand his bond with the poet and escape the gravity of his London obsessions. Accompanied on this journey by his wife Anna (who shares a connection with Clare), the artist Brian Catling and magus Alan Moore - as well as a host of literary ghosts, both visionary and romantic - Sinclair's quest for Clare becomes an investigation into madness, sanity and the nature of the poet's muse.'Brilliant . . . amusing, alarming and poignant. An elegy for an already lost English landscape. Magnificent and urgent'Robert Macfarlane, Times Literary Supplement'A sensitive,beautifully rendered portrait . . . a feast, a riddle, a slowly unravelling conundrum . . . a love-letter to British Romanticism'Independent'Sinclair walks every inch of his wonderful novels and psychogeographies, pacing out huge word-courses like an architect laying out a city on an empty plain'J. G. Ballard, ObserverIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

‘A book full of richness, unexpected enticements, short sharp shocks and breathtaking writing’ Guardian Welcome to the real, unauthorised London: the disappeared, the unapproved, the unvoiced, the mythical and the all-but forgotten. The perfect companion to the city. ‘Exhilarating, truly wonderful, a cavalcade of eloquent writing. London demands an anthology like this to remind us of the irascible quirkiness of its residents, and we have Sinclair to thank for marshalling such a perverse and ultimately pleasurable exercise’ Independent on Sunday

Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire is Iain Sinclair's foray into one of London's most fascinating boroughs'As detailed and as complex as a historical map, taking the reader hither and thither with no care as to which might be the most direct route'ObserverHackney, That Rose-Red Empire is Iain Sinclair's personal record of his north-east London home in which he has lived for forty years. It is a documentary fiction, seeking to capture the spirit of place, before Hackney succumbs to mendacious green papers, eco boasts, sponsored public art and the Olympic Park gnawing at its edges. It is a message in a bottle, chucked into the flood of the future.'An explosion of literary fireworks'Peter Ackroyd, The Times'Gloriously sprawling, wonderfully congested, one of the finest books about London in recent decades'Daily Telegraph'Sinclair adopts the roles of pedestrian, pilgrim and poet, magnificently illuminating the borough's historical and spiritual life'The Times'Remarkable, compelling, bristles with unexpected, frequently lurid life. On Sinclair's territory there's nobody to touch him . . . a gonzo Samuel Pepys'Sunday TimesIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

London Orbital is Iain Sinclair's exceptional voyage of discovery into the unloved outskirts of the city'My book of the year. Sentence for sentence, there is no more interesting writer at work in English' John Lanchester, Daily TelegraphEncircling London like a noose, the M25 is a road to nowhere, but when Iain Sinclair sets out to walk this asphalt loop - keeping within the 'acoustic footprints' - he is determined to find out where the journey will lead him. Stumbling upon converted asylums, industrial and retail parks, ring-fenced government institutions and lost villages, Sinclair discovers a Britain of the fringes, a landscape consumed by developers. London Orbital charts this extraordinary trek and round trip of the soul, revealing the country as you've never seen it before.'A magnum opus, my book of the year. I urge you to read it. In fact, if you're a Londoner and haven't read it by the end of next year, I suggest you leave' Will Self, Evening Standard'A journey into the heart of darkness and a fascinating snapshot of who we are, lit by Sinclair's vivid prose. I'm sure it will be read fifty years from now' J. G. Ballard, Observer

'A book about London; in other words, a book about everything' Peter Ackroyd, The TimesWalking the streets of London, Iain Sinclair traces nine routes across the territory of the capital. Connecting people and places, redrawing boundaries both ancient and modern, reading obscure signs and finding hidden patterns, Sinclair creates a fluid snapshot of the city. In LIGHTS OUT FOR THE TERRITORY he gives us a daring, provocative, enlightening, disturbing and utterly unique picture of modern urban life. And in the process he reveals the dark underbelly of a London many of us did not know existed.

In American Smoke, Iain Sinclair hits the road to America in the tracks of the Beats.On the trail of the American Beats, Iain Sinclair makes a delirious and perhaps ill-fated expedition in the footsteps of Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Charles Olson and Gary Snyder. It is a journey in search of literary ghosts behind mirages of volcanoes and the Old West. In which rumours vie with false memories and unreliable reports to steer our guide from one strange adventure into another. It is an odyssey in which the beginning offers no clues as to where it may end. 'A transatlantic odyssey . . . grippingly haunted' Observer'A challenging, maddening, fascinating journey . . . enjoy Sinclair's poetic language and subtly warped sense of humour. Rich and engrossing' Metro'Sit back and feel the invigorating pulse of beautifully crafted prose . . . wonderful' Daily Telegraph'Iain Sinclair has gone from cult author to national treasure' Robert MacfarlaneIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk.

Dining on Stones is Iain Sinclair's sharp, edgy mystery of London and its environs.Andrew Norton, poet, visionary and hack, is handed a mysterious package that sees him quit London and head out along the A13 on an as yet undefined quest. Holing up in a roadside hotel, unable to make sense of his search, he is haunted by ghosts: of the dead and the not-so dead; demanding wives and ex-wives; East End gangsters; even competing versions of himself. Shifting from Hackney to Hastings and all places in-between, while dissecting a man's fractured psyche piece by piece, Dining on Stones is a puzzle and a quest - for both writer and reader.'Exhilarating, wonderfully funny, greatly unsettling - Sinclair on top form' Daily Telegraph'Prose of almost incantatory power, cut with Chandleresque pithiness' Sunday Times'Spectacular: the work of a man with the power to see things as they are, and magnify that vision with a clarity that is at once hallucinatory and forensic' Independent on SundayIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.Andrew Norton, poet, visionary and hack, is handed a mysterious package that sees him quit London and head out along the A13 on an as yet undefined quest. Holing up in a roadside hotel, unable to make sense of his search, he is haunted by ghosts: of the dead and the not-so dead; demanding wives and ex-wives; East End gangsters; even competing versions of himself. Shifting from Hackney to Hastings and all places in-between, while dissecting a man's fractured psyche piece by piece, Dining on Stones is a puzzle and a quest - for both writer and reader.Praise for Iain Sinclair:'A modern-day William Blake' Jacques Peretti, BBC Culture Show'One of the finest writers alive' Alan Moore'Eloquent chronicler of London's grunge and glory' Independent'He writes with a fascinated, gleeful disgust, sees with neo-Blakean vision, listens with an ear tuned to the white noise of an asphalt soundtrack' The Times'Sinclair is a genius . . . Sinclair is the poet of place' GQ'Sinclair breathes wondrous life into monstrous, man-made landscapes' TLS'Iain Sinclair is a reliably exhilarating writer' Telegraph'He is incapable of writing a dull paragraph' Scotland on SundayIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Ghost Milk, Dining on Stones and Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

Iain Sinclair explores modern London through a day's hike around the London Overground route.The completion of the full circle of London Overground provides Iain Sinclair with a new path to walk the shifting territory of the capital. With thirty-three stations and thirty-five miles to tramp - plus inevitable and unforeseen detours and false steps - he embarks on a marathon circumnavigation at street level, tracking the necklace of garages, fish farms, bakeries, convenience cafés, cycle repair shops and Minder lock-ups which enclose inner London. 'He is incapable of writing a dull paragraph' Scotland on Sunday'Sinclair breathes wondrous life into monstrous man-made landscapes' Times Literary Supplement'If you are drawn to English that doesn't just sing, but sings the blues and does scat and rocks the joint, try Sinclair. His sentences deliver a rush like no one else's' Washington Post

Iain Sinclair explores modern London through a day's hike around the London Overground route.Echoing his journey in London Orbital over a decade ago, Iain Sinclair narrates his second circular walk around the capital. Shortly after rush-hour and accompanied by a rambling companion, Sinclair begins walking along London's Overground network, or, 'Ginger Line'. With characteristic playfulness, detours into folk history, withering assessments of the political classes and a joyful allegiance to the ordinary oddball, Sinclair guides us on a tour of London's trendiest new transport network - and shows the shifting, changing city from new and surprising angles.'He is incapable of writing a dull paragraph' Scotland on Sunday'Sinclair breathes wondrous life into monstrous man-made landscapes' Times Literary Supplement'If you are drawn to English that doesn't just sing, but sings the blues and does scat and rocks the joint, try Sinclair. His sentences deliver a rush like no one else's' Washington PostIain Sinclair's books include London Orbital, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, Downriver (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award) Ghost Milk and American Smoke. He lives in Hackney, East London.

A splendid – and necessary – publication…a great resourceIain SinclairCharles Booth’s landmark survey of life in late-19th-century London, published for the first time in one volume. In the late nineteenth century, Charles Booth's landmark social and economic survey found that 35 percent of Londoners were living in abject poverty. Booth's team of social investigators interviewed Londoners from all walks of life, recording their comments, together with their own unrestrained remarks and statistical information, in 450 notebooks. Their findings formed the basis of Booth's colour-coded social mapping (from vicious and semi-criminal to wealthy) and his seventeen-volume survey Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People of London, 1886-1903.Organized into six geographical sections, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps presents the hand-colored preparatory and printed social mapping of London. Accompanying the maps are reproductions of pages from the original notebooks, containing anecdotes and observations too judgmental for Booth to include in his final published survey. An introduction by professor Mary S. Morgan clarifies the aims and methodology of Booth's survey and six themed essays contextualize the the survey's findings, accompanied by evocative period photographs. Providing insights into the minutia of everyday life viewed through the lens of inhabitants of every trade, class, creed, and nationality, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps brings to life the diversity and dynamism of late nineteenth-century London.

David Cronenberg's Crash (1996) brought down a storm of controversy and opprobrium when it was first screened in London. And yet it's a cool, controlled, formal film, unsensational, more analytic than titillating, a brilliant exposé of modern pathologies. It has almost none of the violence and explicit sexual content of the J.G. Ballard novel from which it is adapted. What is the relationship between Ballard himself and the character 'James Ballard' in Crash?In this book, which includes an exclusive and revealing interview with Ballard, Sinclair explores the uncanny temporal loop which connects film and novel. If Cronenberg's 'adapted' Crash, he also absorbed it, ingested it, made it into something new. But, on the other hand, the novel controls the film, or uses the film to disguise its truly subversive intent. And, for Sinclair, there are more startling permutations still. To what extent, for example, is Crash a premonition of some of the more remarkable media events of recent times?

A New Statesman Book of the Year, 2021 ‘Follow Iain Sinclair into the cloud jungles of Peru and emerge questioning all that seemed so solid and immutable.’ Barry Miles From the award-winning author of The Last London and Lights Out for the Territory, a journey in the footsteps of our ancestors. Iain Sinclair and his daughter travel through Peru, guided by – and in reaction to – an ill-fated colonial expedition led by his great-grandfather. The family history of a displaced Scottish highlander fades into the brutal reality of a major land grab. The historic thirst for gold and the establishment of sprawling coffee plantations leave terrible wounds on virgin territory. In Sinclair’s haunting prose, no place escapes its past, and nor can we. ‘The Gold Machine is a trip, a psychoactive expedition in compelling company.’ TLS

A New Statesman Book of the Year, 2021‘Follow Iain Sinclair into the cloud jungles of Peru and emerge questioning all that seemed so solid and immutable.’ Barry MilesFrom the award-winning author of The Last London and Lights Out for the Territory, a journey in the footsteps of our ancestors.Iain Sinclair and his daughter travel through Peru, guided by – and in reaction to – an ill-fated colonial expedition led by his great-grandfather. The family history of a displaced Scottish highlander fades into the brutal reality of a major land grab. The historic thirst for gold and the establishment of sprawling coffee plantations leave terrible wounds on virgin territory.In Sinclair’s haunting prose, no place escapes its past, and nor can we.‘The Gold Machine is a trip, a psychoactive expedition in compelling company.’ TLS

In Pariah Genius, literary giant Iain Sinclair follows in the footsteps of photographer John Deakin, whose chronicles of Soho life - and the world of Francis Bacon and his friends - have so influenced our perception of that generation's work.In this bold fictionalisation, Sinclair enters the underworld of Deakin's life and imagination, pursuing his subject across continents, in dive bars, and bedrooms. The result is an engrossing, utterly unique portrait of a man who some felt was a fallen angel, and others, the devil himself.

''A remarkable book; surprisingly gripping and often very moving ... at once disorientating and illuminating.'' - Robert MacfarlaneWe shape ourselves, and are shaped in return, by the walls that contain us. Buildings affect how we sleep, work, socialise and even breathe. They can isolate and endanger us but they can also heal us. We project our hopes and fears onto buildings, while they absorb our histories.In Living With Buildings, Iain Sinclair embarks on a series of expeditions - through London, Marseille, Mexico and the Outer Hebrides. A father and his daughter, who has a rare syndrome, visit the estate where they once lived. Developers clink champagne glasses as residents are ''decanted'' from their homes. A box sculpted from whalebone, thought to contain healing properties, is returned to its origins with unexpected consequences. Part investigation, part travelogue, Living With Buildings brings the spaces we inhabit to life as never before.