J. G. Ballard

James Graham Ballard (often "Jim"; 15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and important member of the New Wave movement in science fiction. His best-known books are  Crash (1973) and Empire of the Sun (1984).

Life

Shanghai
Ballard's father was a chemist at a company called the Calico Printers Association. The company was based in Manchester and made cloth. Ballard was born and raised in the Shanghai International Settlement, an area under foreign control where people "lived an American style of life".  He went to the Cathedral School in Shanghai. After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ballard's family temporarily left their suburban home and rented 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. Ballard was sent to the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center with his parents and younger sister. He spent over two years in the internment camp. His family lived in a small area in G block, a two-story residence for 40 families. He went to school in the camp.

Many think that Ballard's exposure to the atrocities of war at a young age explains the conflicts and violence in much of his fiction.

England and Canada
In 1946, after the end of the war, his mother returned to England with Ballard and his sister on the SS Arrawa. They in Plymouth, and he attended The Leys School in Cambridge. After a couple of years his mother and sister returned to China, rejoining Ballard's father. Ballard went to live with his grandparents when he was not at boarding school. In 1949 he went on to study medicine at King's College, Cambridge and planned to become a psychiatrist.

At university, Ballard was writing avant-garde fiction heavily influenced by psychoanalysis and surrealist painters.  At this time, he wanted to become a writer as well as pursue a medical career. Ballard stopped his medical studies, and in 1952 he enrolled at Queen Mary, University of London to read English Literature. However, he was asked to leave at the end of the year.  Ballard then worked  for an advertising agency and as an encyclopedia salesman.  He kept writing short fiction but did not get published.

In 1953 Ballard joined the Royal Air Force and was sent to the RCAF flight-training base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. He left the RAF in 1954 after two years and returned to England.  In 1955 he married Helen Mary Matthews and they lived in Chiswick.

Ballard published several novels and short-story collections during the seventies and eighties. However, he only became popular in the mainstream with his novel Empire of the Sun in 1984. This novel was based on his years in Shanghai and in an internment camp. It became a bestseller,

Ballard continued to write until the end of his life. He died of prostate cancer in London.

Influence
Bruce Sterling called Ballard is an important writer leading to cyberpunk in the introduction to the Mirrorshades anthology.

Jean Baudrillard praised Crash as the first great novel of the universe of simulation in Simulacra and Simulation

Ballard was interested in the relationship between different media. He was one of the trustees of the Institute for Research in Art and Technology in the early 1970s.

Works

Novels

Short story collections

Other 
A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews (1996)
Miracles of Life (Autobiography; 2008)

Adaptations

Films 
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) dir. Val Guest
Empire of the Sun (1987) dir. Steven Spielberg
Crash (1996) dir. David Cronenberg
The Atrocity Exhibition (2001) dir. Jonathan Weiss
Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude (2002), dir. Solveig Nordlund. (Portuguese adaptation of the short story "Low Flying Aircraft")

Television 
"Thirteen to Centaurus" (1965) from the short story of the same name – dir. Peter Potter (BBC Two)
Crash! (1971) dir. Harley Cokliss
"Minus One" (1991) from the story of the same name – short film dir. by Simon Brooks.
"Home" (2003) primarily based on "The Enormous Space" – dir. Richard Curson Smith (BBC Four)

References

Bibliography

Ballard, J.G. (1984). Empire of the Sun. .
Ballard, J.G. (1991). The Kindness of Women. .
Ballard, J.G. (1993). The Atrocity Exhibition (expanded and annotated edition). .
Ballard, J.G. (2006). "Look back at Empire". The Guardian, 4 March 2006.
Baxter, J. (2001). "J.G. Ballard". The Literary Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11 March 2006.
Baxter, J. (ed.) (2008). J.G. Ballard, London: Continuum. 
 Brigg, Peter (1985). J.G. Ballard. Rpt. Borgo Press/Wildside Press. 
Collins English Dictionary . . Quoted in Ballardian: The World of JG Ballard. Retrieved 11 March 2006.
Cowley, J. (2001). "The Ballard of Shanghai jail". Review of The Complete Stories by J.G. Ballard. The Observer, 4 November 2001. Retrieved 11 March 2006.
Delville, Michel. J.G. Ballard. Plymouth: Northcote House, 1998.
Gasiorek, A. (2005). J. G. Ballard. Manchester University Press. 
Hall, C. "Extreme Metaphor: A Crash Course in the Fiction of JG Ballard". Retrieved 11 March 2006.
Livingstone, D.B. (1996?). "Prophet with Honour". Retrieved 12 March 2006.
Luckhurst, R. (1998). The Angle Between Two Walls: The Fiction of J. G. Ballard. Liverpool University Press. 
McGrath, R.  JG Ballard Book Collection. Retrieved 11 March 2006.
Oramus, Dominika. Grave New World. Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2007.
Pringle, David, Earth is the Alien Planet: J.G. Ballard's Four-Dimensional Nightmare, San Bernardino, CA: The Borgo Press, 1979.
Pringle, David (ed.) and Ballard, J.G. (1982). "From Shanghai to Shepperton". Re/Search 8/9: J.G. Ballard: 112–124. .
Rossi, Umberto (2009). “A Little Something about Dead Astronauts”, Science-Fiction Studies, #107, 36:1 (March), 101–120.
Stephenson, Gregory, Out of the Night and Into the Dream: A Thematic Study of the Fiction of J.G. Ballard, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
V. Vale (ed.) (2005). "J.G. Ballard: Conversations" (excerpts ). RE/Search Publications. 
V. Vale (ed.) and Ryan, Mike (ed). (2005). "J.G. Ballard: Quotes" (excerpts ). RE/Search Publications.

Other websites

J. G. Ballard's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
Ballardian: The World of J.G. Ballard (Simon Sellars)
J.G. Ballard Literary Archive & Bibliographies (Rick McGrath)
 2008 profile of J. G. Ballard by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal magazine

articles, reviews and essays
 
 Landscapes From a Dream , J G Ballard and modern art
 The Marriage of Reason and Nightmare, City Journal, Winter 2008
Miracles of Life reviewed by Karl Miller in the TLS, 12 March 2008
J.G. Ballard: The Glow of the Prophet Diane Johnson article on Ballard from The New York Review of Books
Reviews of Ballard's work and John Foyster's criticism of Ballard's work featured in Edition 46 of Science Fiction magazine edited by Van Ikin.

source material
Manuscripts for The Unlimited Dream Company at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
J. G. Ballard and his family on the list of the interment camp  at Japan Center for Asian Historical Records

obituaries and remembrances
Obituary  in the Times Online
Obituary by David Pringle in the Guardian
Obituary by John Clute in The Independent
Obituary in the New York Times
Obituary in the Los Angeles Times
Quotes from other writers on BBC News
More writers' reactions in The Guardian
A short appreciation in The New Yorker
Tribute  by V. Vale from RE/Search
Letter From London: The J.G. Ballard Memorial 

1930 births
2009 deaths
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
British autobiographers
Cancer deaths in London
Deaths from prostate cancer
English novelists