J.G Ballard author page

J.G. Ballard biography

J.G. Ballard was a British author known for his work in science fiction and dystopian literature. He was born in Shanghai and spent part of his childhood in a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War, an experience that influenced his later writing. Ballard studied medicine at King’s College, Cambridge, before turning to writing full-time.

His first novel, The Drowned World, was published in 1962 by Gollancz. Ballard’s early works, including The Drowned World, The Drought (1965), and The Crystal World (1966), are often associated with the New Wave movement in science fiction. In 1973, he published Crash, a controversial novel exploring the relationship between sexuality and car accidents. High-Rise followed in 1975, examining social breakdown within a luxury apartment building.

Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun was published in 1984 by Victor Gollancz Ltd. The book drew on his wartime experiences in Shanghai and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Empire of the Sun won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1984 and was later adapted into a film directed by Steven Spielberg.

Other notable works include Concrete Island (1974), Super-Cannes (2000), and Millennium People (2003). Ballard received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book) for Cocaine Nights in 1997. His final novel, Kingdom Come, was published in 2006.

J.G. Ballard’s archive was acquired by the British Library in 2010.