Iain Sinclair, Downriver

David Cunningham (University of Westminster)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

Wales (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Published in 1991,

Downriver

(Or, The Vessels of Wrath

) was Iain Sinclair's second novel, following

White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

(1987). The book went on to win the James Tait Memorial Prize and Encore Award, and tends to be regarded by most commentators as his finest work to date. Centred, as usual, upon the landscape, history and mythology of London, the novel is subtitled

A Narrative in Twelve Tales

and records a series of linked journeys around a surreally distorted city written in the first person voice of a narrator called “Iain Sinclair”.

Continuing on from the contemporary setting of his first novel in the world of bookdealing, Downriver begins with a trip to an undiscovered bookshop in Tilbury and goes on to include a nightmarish walk through the Rotherhithe Tunnel, an

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1605 words

Citation: Cunningham, David. "Downriver". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5531, accessed 24 April 2024.]

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