Author(s): Iain Sinclair

Travel Writing

'A walk around the circuit of the elevated railway, that accidental re-mapping of London, in a single day.' The completion of the full circle of London Overground in December 2012 provides Iain Sinclair with a new path to walk the shifting territory of the capital. With thirty-three stations and thirty-five miles to tramp - plus inevitable and unforeseen detours and false steps - Sinclair embarks on a marathon circumnavigation at street level, tracking the necklace of garages, fish farms, bakeries, convenience cafés, cycle repair shops and Minder lock-ups which enclose inner London. Here he encounters traces of writers gone or nearly forgotten, uncovers evidence of careless erasures and incongruous overlappings, follows signs of decay hijacked by official rejuvenation and generally slips between the cracks of the approved and over-capitalized. In London Overground, this new railway - which turns out to be not new at all - provides new inspiration for Iain Sinclair and a brilliant extension to his previous expeditionary epistles, Lights Out for the Territoryand London Orbital.