The Literary Psychogeography of London

This Pivot book examines literary elements of urban topography that have animated Alan Moore, Peter Ackroyd, and Iain Sinclairs respective representations of London-ness. Ann Tso argues these authors write London psychogeographically to deconstruct popular visions of London with colonial and neoliberal undertones. Moores psychogeography consists of birds-eye views that reveal the brute force threatening to unravel Londonscape from within; Ackroyds aims to detect London sensuously, since every new awareness recalls an otherworldly London; Sinclairs conjures up a narrative consciousness made erratic by Londons disunified landscape. Drawing together the dystopian, the phenomenological, and the postcolonial, Tso explores how these texts characterize London-ness as estranging.