Iain Sinclair Biography (13 Nov 2008)

Iain Sinclair was born in 1943 in Cardiff, and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the London School of Film Technique. His early work was poetry, published by his own Albion Village Press, and including the collections Lud Heat: A Book of the Dead Hamlets (1975) and Suicide Bridge: A Mythology of the South and East (1979). He was connected to the British avantgarde poetry scene in the 1960s and 70s involving J. H. Prynne, Douglas Oliver and Brian Calting. He also edited the 1996 poetry anthology, Conductors of Chaos.

His first novel, the highly praised White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings was published by Goldmark in 1987.

The city of London is central to his work, and his books tell a psychogeography of London involving characters including Jack the Ripper, Count Dracula and Arthur Conan Doyle. His non-fiction works inlude Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London (1997); London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25 (2002); and Edge of the Orison (2005), a reconstruction of the poet John Clare's walk from Epping Forest to Helpston, near Peterborough.

His novels include Downriver (1991), which tells of a UK under the rule of 'The Widow', a grotesque version of Margaret Thatcher; Landor's Tower (2001); White Goods (2002); and Dining on Stones (2004).

Iain Sinclair lives in Hackney, East London.