On Brick Lane

Description

On Brick Lane is a journey into the heart of the East End, an excavation of past, memory, place and people. By looking at a single street, Rachel Lichtenstein teases out the story of one of London's most vibrant and dynamic communities. It is a story of immigration - of Huguenots, Jews, Bangladeshis; of anarchists and fascists; of abandoned synagogues, teeming mosques and incongruent Hawksmoor churches; of gangsters and artists; shopkeepers and street life; the beating heart of a never-still, always-vocal people. With Lichtenstein's skilful guidance, it becomes a trip through a world that is at once recognizable, but also wonderfully stange.

Rachel Lichtenstein is the author of Rodinsky's Room, which she co-authored with Iain Sinclair, Rodinsky's Whitechapel, Keeping Pace: Older Women of the East End, A Little Dust Whispered, On Brick Lane, and Diamond Street: The Hidden World of Hatton Garden. She trained as a sculptor, and has exhibited her work in several British and international venues, including the Whitechapel Gallery, the Barbican, the British Library, Woodstreet Galleries in Pittsburgh, and the Jerusalem Theatre in Israel. From 2002 to 2004, she was the British Library's first Pearson Creative Research Fellow. Her forthcoming book, Estuary, will be published by Hamish Hamilton in Autumn 2016.

A collage of beady-eyed topographical study, family history and oral testimony... an intriguing, vivid memorial Seven/ Telegraph ...a comprehensive, deeply researched portrait of the street... affectionate, absorbing New Statesman