Author(s): Iain Sinclair

Travel | South and Central America | Peru | History

From the award-winning author of The Last London and Lights Out for the Territory, a journey in the footsteps of our ancestors.
 
In The Gold Machine, Iain Sinclair and his daughter travel through Peru, guided by - and in reaction to - an ill-fated colonial expedition led by his great-grandfather, Arthur Sinclair. The incursions of Catholic bounty hunters and Adventist missionaries are contrasted with today's ecotourists and short-cut vision seekers. The family history of a displaced Scottish highlander fades into the brutal reality of a major land grab. The historic thirst for gold and the establishment of sprawling coffee plantations leave terrible wounds on virgin territory.
 
What might once have been portrayed as an intrepid adventure is transformed into a shocking tale of the violated rights of indigenous people, secret dealings between London finance and Peruvian government, and the collusion of the church in colonial expansion. In Sinclair's haunting prose, no place escapes its past, and nor can we.

Review: 'Follow Iain Sinclair into the cloud jungles of Peru and emerge questioning all that seemed so solid and immutable. The Gold Machine made me angry, sad, envious of Sinclair's beautiful, evocative prose and grateful that I did not have to endure a soroche headache to gain a new understanding of colonial attitudes and the damage we have done.' -- Barry Miles

'A glorious achievement, by turns drily humorous and darkly atmospheric.'-- Ian Thomson, FT

'The Gold Machine is an intense negotiation with [Sinclair's] ancestor... the driest of wit... Sinclair is incapable of writing a dull sentence, and his style in many ways reflects the hallucinatory nature of the tropics. I cannot think of many authors who can combine "sordid pilgrimage", "manufactured myths" and "Jungian misdirection" in a single paragraph... The classic tropes of Sinclair's work are all here, although transposed onto the Peruvian backdrop... The Gold Machine is a form of alchemy, and Sinclair is a wry sorcerer throughout.' -- The Spectator

'The journey is richly imaginative, Sinclair's mind sparkling with connections... The Gold Machine is a trip, a psychoactive expedition in compelling company. We finish it reeling slightly, and feeling grateful to have undertaken this journey without having to leave home.' -- Miranda France, TLS

'Impeccably researched' -- The New Yorker

'Other than Peter Ackroyd, nobody knows London better than Sinclair. Here, five decades into a distinguished writing career, he ventures farther afield, traveling to Peru on the trail of a Scottish ancestor who sought his fortune in coffee... Fans of travel literature will prize this shimmering account of a journey into the past.' -- Kirkus, starred review

'In this magnificent book, Iain Sinclair and his daughter follow their culpable, intrepid ancestor into Peru, towards a coffee-black heart of colonial darkness. Of course the old man is looking for gold, and finding it, on every page, in every line. A sultry masterpiece.' -- Alan Moore

'Marshalling his exceptional skills of social observation and narrative, Britain's finest modern essayist Iain Sinclair strikes south in The Gold Machine... he conducts an elegiac dialogue between generations and sinks into the deep past.' -- New Statesman, Books of the Year, 2021

Author Biography: Iain Sinclair is the award-winning writer of numerous critically acclaimed books on London, including The Last London, Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital and London Overground. He won the Encore Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Downriver. He lives in Hackney, East London.