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J.G. Ballard

James Graham Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction. His best-known books are Crash (1973), adapted into a film by David Cronenberg, and the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun (1984), made into a film by Steven Spielberg, [1] based on Ballard's boyhood in the International Settlement and internment by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War.

The literary distinctiveness of his work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian," defined by the Collins English Dictionary as “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard’s novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.” [2]

Ballard was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June 2006, from which he died in London in April 2009.[3]

In 2008, The Times included Ballard on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[4]

Life

Shanghai

Ballard's father was a chemist at a Manchester-based textile firm, the Calico Printers Association, and became chairman and managing director of its subsidiary in Shanghai, the China Printing and Finishing Company. Ballard was born and raised in the Shanghai International Settlement, an area under foreign control where people "lived an American style of life".[5] He was sent to the Cathedral School in Shanghai. After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ballard's family were forced to temporarily evacuate their suburban home and rent a house in downtown Shanghai to avoid the shells fired by Chinese and Japanese forces.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese occupied the International Settlement. In early 1943 they began interning Allied civilians, and Ballard was sent to the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center with his parents and younger sister. He spent over two years, the remainder of World War II, in the internment camp. His family lived in a small area in G block, a two-story residence for 40 families. He attended school in the camp, the teachers being camp inmates from a number of professions. These experiences formed the basis of Empire of the Sun, although Ballard exercised considerable artistic licence in writing the book, notably removing his parents from the bulk of the story.[6][7]

It is often supposed that Ballard's exposure to the atrocities of war at an impressionable age explains the apocalyptic and violent nature of much of his fiction.[8][9][10] Martin Amis wrote that Empire of the Sun "gives shape to what shaped him."[9] However, Ballard's own account of the experience was more nuanced: "I don't think you can go through the experience of war without one's perceptions of the world being forever changed. The reassuring stage set that everyday reality in the suburban west presents to us is torn down; you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that, and it can be a frightening experience."[10] But also: "I have—I won't say happy—not unpleasant memories of the camp. [...] I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on—but at the same we children were playing a hundred and one games all the time!"[5]
More from Wikipedia...

Other Websites:

• J. G. Ballard at Contemporary Writers
• J. G. Ballard at the Open Directory Project
• J. G. Ballard at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• J. G. Ballard at the Internet Movie Database
• J. G. Ballard's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
• Ballardian: The World of J.G. Ballard

Books: