Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, and influenced by psychogeography.

Early life and education Sinclair was born in Cardiff, Wales, on 11 June 1943. a boarding school for boys, followed by Trinity College, Dublin (where he edited Icarus). He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School). 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 published The 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." 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.

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." 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 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.

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" as described in the 1895 book In Tropical Lands. Travelling with his daughter, Farne, filmmaker Grant Gee, and poet and translator Adolfo Barberá del Rosal, the journey was 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 material for an essay-feature film entitled The Gold Machine, released in 2022. A book by Sinclair with the same title was also published in 2021. A small selection of prose-poetry inspired by the trip was published by Earthbound Press.

Recognition and awards In an interview with This Week in Science in 2004, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.

Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.

In 2013 he became a visiting professor at the University for the Creative Arts.

In October 2018, the University of Surrey reported that Sinclair had been appointed "distinguished writer in residence" with their School of Literature and Languages.

Personal life Sinclair lived in Haggerston, in the London Borough of Hackney, and had a flat in Marine Court, a building designed in the Streamline Moderne style in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.