Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire

Book excerpt: 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'Observer Hackney, 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 Times 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.