Iain Sinclair - Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire

Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire is a timely excavation of London’s East End. Once an Arcadian suburb of grand houses, orchards and conservatories, Hackney declined into a zone of asylums, hospitals and dirty industry; now, the Olympics seeks to complete the process - erasure disguised as ‘progress’. Iain Sinclair’s sold-out talk at the London Review Bookshop covered the process of writing of his "documentary fiction", its roots in his first published work (also on Hackney), and the origins of the title and subtitle, as well as some priceless Hackney anecdotes.