Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire

LSE Literary Weekend panel discussion

Iain Sinclair is a writer, poet and film-maker and widely regarded as one of London’s greatest chroniclers. His many books include 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 and Dining on Stones. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances. His latest book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, a 'documentary fiction' is published by Hamish Hamilton in February 2009 has already made the press for his public criticism of the Olympic development and the book’s controversial political content.

Jerry White has been writing about London for thirty years. His London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People won the Wolfson History Prize 2001. His oral histories Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East End Treatment Block 1887-1920 (which won the Jewish Chronicle non-fiction book prize for 1980) and Campbell's Bunk: the Worst Street in North-London Between the Wars were reprinted by Pimlico in 2003. He is Visiting Professor in London Studies at Birkbeck and in 2005 was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by the University of London.

Patrick Wright is a writer with an interest in the cultural and political dimensions of modern history. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed and sometimes also reviled books, including The Village that Died for England (1995), Tank: the Progress of a Monstrous War Machine and Iron Curtain: from Stage to Cold War (2007). A Journey through Ruins (1991), which is also now republished in an expanded new edition by Oxford, reviewed Margaret Thatcher’s policies through their impact on East London and was written and researched in conversation with Iain Sinclair, then at work on his novel, Downriver. His journalism has been published in many magazines and newspapers, and he has made numerous documentaries for both BBC Radio 3 and 4. He was a presenter of Radio Three’s ‘Night Waves’ from 200-2005, and his television work includes The River, a four-part BBC2 series on the Thames. Having started writing while working for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in the 1980s, he is now a Professor at the Institute for Cultural Analysis at Nottingham Trent University and a fellow of the London Consortium. His most recent writing about East London is a long introduction to Emanuel Litvinoff’s Journey Through a Small Planet, published as a Penguin Modern Classic in 2007. He is presently writing about the British engagement with ‘New China’ after 1949. More information is available on www.patrickwright.net

George Jones OBE, Emeritus Professor of Government at LSE and Chairman of its Greater London Group, wrote with Bernard Donoughue, the biography Herbert Morrison: portrait of a politician (1973 and 2001), which covers Morrison’s time as mayor of Hackney and its MP. He chaired Constitutional Committees in Hackney and Brent (1998-2002). He has written, co-authored and edited a number of books, chapters and articles about local government, including Borough Politics (1969); Political Leadership in Local Authorities (1978); New Approaches to the Study of Central-Local Government Relationships (1980); The Case for Local Government (1983 and 1985); Between Centre and Locality (1985); The Government of London (1991 and 1997); Local Government: the management agenda (1993); and The New Local Government Agenda (1997). Professor Jones was a member of the Layfield Committee on Local Government Finance (1974-76), the DoE’s Joint Working Party on the Internal Management of Local Authorities (1992-93), and the DETR’s Beacon Councils Advisory Panel (1999-2003). He was a member of the National Consumer Council (1991-99) and Chair of its Public Services Committee (1992-98). He is a Visiting Professor of Queen Mary, University of London, Honorary Professor of the University of Birmingham, Visiting Research Fellow of De Montfort University, and Hon Fellow of the University of Wolverhampton. He is an Honorary Member of both CIPFA and SOLACE, and a Vice-President of the National Association of Councillors.

This is part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Weekend, the LSE's first ever Literary Festival, celebrating the completion of the New Academic Building.

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