Library banned me for criticising olympics, says author

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Iain Sinclair was booked to appear at Stoke Newington Library to talk about his new book Hackney, That Rose Red Empire.

But the invitation was suddenly withdrawn after the author wrote an essay in the London Review of Books, entitled The Olympics Scam.

The essay said the venue would be nothing more than a huge shopping mall in Stratford and that the legacy would be "lasting shame".

After the essay appeared, Sinclair was phoned by the library who told him he was no longer welcome. Sinclair said: "The person who invited me was told they were no longer allowed to have me because I had been critical of the Olympics."

A spokesman for Hackney council said it would be inappropriate to host a launch for a book "expressing controversial or political opinions".

However, Sinclair ridiculed this, saying: "They can't know anything about this book because it is not published for another three months."