JG Ballard
Author of modern classics such as Empire of the Sun who died in April, 2009...
Biography and exclusive video interview in association with Waterstone's Books Quarterly. Read more at wbqonline.com
James Graham Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After the attack on Pearl Harbour, Ballard and his family were placed in a civilian prison camp and they didn't return to England until 1946. After two years at Cambridge, where he read medicine, Ballard worked as a copywriter and a Covent Garden porter before going to Canada with the RAF.
In 1956 his first short story was published in New Worlds and he took a full-time job on a technical journal, moving on to become assistant editor of a scientific journal, where he stayed until 1961. His first novel, The Drowned World, was written in the same year.
Ballard was at the forefront of modern British fiction for over three decades and today is a bestselling writer of international stature. His acclaimed 1984 novel Empire of the Sun, based on his experiences in the prison camp, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was later filmed by Steven Spielberg as a movie of the same name. His highly controversial 1973 novel Crash, in which a road accident provokes a disturbing series of obsessions in the narrator, was brought to the cinema by David Cronenberg.
His more recent work includes Rushing to Paradise, Running Wild, and the highly acclaimed Cocaine Nights, a Sunday Times bestseller in hardback and paperback, which was shortlisted for the 1996 Whitbread Novel Award. 2000 was the year that the future arrived for JG Ballard - the 21st-century has for the last four decades provided the backdrop for the visionary futurism in his novels. It was also the year of his 70th birthday.
Ballard wrote ground-breaking, challenging, apocalyptic fiction for over half a century. He was a truly unique author whose recent and older works remain fresh, shocking and exhilarating. Long after the flames of other 60s greats had been extinguished, Ballard continued to produce books that were original enough to put much new writing to shame, as he demonstrated with 2003's Millennium People, and his most recent novel, Kingdom Come.
He passed away in April, 2009, after a long illness.
Photo taken by Paul Murphy, originally supplied to accompany Simon Sellars' interview with JGB in 2006.
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Miracles of Life
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J. G. Ballard has been, for over fifty years, one of this country's most significant writers. Beginning with the events that inspired his classic novel, 'Empire of the Sun', in this revelatory autobiography he charts the course of...
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From his typically reclusive hideaway in Middlesex, Ballard now brings us his latest and arguably his most anticipated work, his autobiography, Miracles of Life - Shanghai to Shepperton. A memoir and an enthralling narrative that provides a detailed examination of the events that would profoundly influence his work, and an invaluable glimpse at what makes the great man tick.
Ballard begins with the relative normality of his days spent cycling the streets of pre-war Shanghai, through his surreal experiences in the Lunghua Camp, his relocation 'home' to a new and apocalyptic Britain, torn apart by war and paradoxically unfamiliar, on to the emotional adjustment that was forced upon him following the death of his wife. Rarely before has a reader had the opportunity to lift the lid on such an extraordinary and unconventional literary talent.
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Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton : an Autobiography by J.G. Ballard
J. G. Ballard has been, for over fifty years, one of this country's most significant writers. Beginning with the events that inspired his... Read more
Format: Paperback 288 pages
Date of publish: 01/09/2008
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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Crash by J.G. Ballard
The definitive cult, post-modern novel -- a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When our narrator smashes his car into another... Read more
Format: Paperback 256 pages
Date of publish: 01/09/2008
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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Kingdom Come by J.G. Ballard
A masterpiece of fiction from J. G. Ballard, which asks could Consumerism turn into Facism? Richard Pearson, unemployed advertising executive and... Read more
Format: Paperback 304 pages
Date of publish: 02/07/2007
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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Empire of the Sun - Harper Perennial Modern Classics S. by J.G. Ballard
The heartrending story of a British boy's four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Based on J. G. Ballard's... Read more
Format: Paperback 352 pages
Date of publish: 20/02/2006
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard
This is the remarkable bestseller from one of the giants of modern British literature - at once an engrossing mystery and an unnerving vision of a... Read more
Format: Paperback 336 pages
Date of publish: 01/09/1997
Publisher: Flamingo
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The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
This fast-paced narrative by the author of CRASH and EMPIRE OF THE SUN is a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and... Read more
Format: Paperback 176 pages
Date of publish: 20/02/2006
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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The Complete Short Stories by J.G. Ballard
This is the second volume in a two volume collection of acclaimed short stories by the author of "Empire of the Sun", "Crash",... Read more
Format: Paperback 784 pages
Date of publish: 04/09/2006
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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High-rise - Flamingo modern classic by J.G. Ballard
From the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Cocaine Nights comes an acclaimed backlist title -- the unnerving tale of life in a modern tower... Read more
Format: Paperback 176 pages
Date of publish: 03/01/1998
Publisher: Flamingo
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The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard
Format: Paperback 352 pages
Date of publish: 12/09/1994
Publisher: Flamingo
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Millennium People by J.G. Ballard
Violent rebellion comes to London's middle classes in the extraordinary new novel from the author of Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes. When a... Read more
Format: Paperback 320 pages
Date of publish: 07/06/2004
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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The Day of Creation - Harper Perennial Modern Classics S. by J.G. Ballard
This title offers an unforgettable voyage of the imagination from the bestselling author of "Cocaine Nights" and "Super-Cannes".... Read more
Format: Paperback 288 pages
Date of publish: 04/09/2006
Publisher: HarperPerennial
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