Iain Sinclair: Walking Is A Democracy

Few people know London like Iain Sinclair. The writer and filmmaker has been roaming its streets since the 1960s, reflecting on the city’s culture and structure and tuning into the echoes of its history and literature. Over the years, the writer has produced a body of work that includes poetry, fiction, literary essay, film and psycho-geographical investigation, each form a different way of coming to terms with the city over time.

Sinclair’s latest collection of writing, The Last London: True Fictions from an Unreal City, concludes this fifty-year cycle. In his final pilgrimage through the city, Sinclair observes his surroundings from different viewpoints: as he swims in the luxury pool at the top of the Shard, or as he walks beside the muddy waters of the Regent’s Canal. He goes underground to look at the new phenomenon of bunkers being dug beneath the houses of the most affluent. The cultural significance of every detail does not escape Sinclair’s sharp wit. This time there is a sense of irreparability in the writer’s tone. The London he sees is a stretched, unfathomable place whose memory and future are threatened by money-driven development and regeneration.

We spoke over the phone in the spring about the ever-evolving spirit of London and the role literature and human interaction can play in keeping its inhabitants present.   

—Teresa O’Connell for Guernica

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