Radon Daughters is the third of Iain Sinclair's novels; one which may be regarded as closing a trilogy begun by White Chappell, Scarlet Traces (1987) and Downriver (1991). Like the earlier novels, and like most of Sinclair's poetry and non-fiction writing, it is a work profoundly concerned with place – specifically, the landscape, history and people of East London. However, while the capital remains the primary setting for Radon Daughters, the novel also narrates journeys to Oxford and Cambridge – the triangulation of the three sites returning Sinclair to a fascination with lines of psychogeographical and “occult” connection first explored in Lud Heat (1975) – and, in the short final section of the book, to the West of Ireland.
Losing the first person narrator (“Iain Sinclair”) of his first two novels, Radon Daughters largely centres...
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Citation: Cunningham, David. "Radon Daughters". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2492, accessed 29 March 2026.]
