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J. G. Ballard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Graham Ballard (15 November 1930 

- 19 April 2009 was an English novelist, short

story writer, and essayist who first became

associated with the New Wave of science fiction 

for his post-apocalyptic novels such asThe Wind

from Nowhere (1961) and The Drowned World 

(1962). In the late 1960s, he produced a variety

of experimental short stories (or "condensed

novels"), such as those collected in the controversial 

The Atrocity Exhibition(1970).

In the mid 1970s, Ballard published several

novels, among them the highly controversial 

Crash (1973), a story about symphorophilia and

car crashfetishism, and High-Rise (1975), a

depiction of a luxury apartment building's descent

into violent chaos.

While much of Ballard's fiction would prove

thematically and stylistically provocative, he

became best known for his relatively conventional

war novel,Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-

autobiographical account of a young British

boy's experiences in Shanghai during 

Japanese occupation.

Described by The Guardian as "the best British

novel about the Second World War", the

story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven

Spielberg starring Christian Bale.

In the following decades until his death in 2009,

Ballard's work shifted toward the form of the

traditional crime novel.

Several of his earlier works have been

adapted into films, including David Cronenberg's

controversial 1996 adaptation ofCrash and

 Ben Wheatley's 2015 adaptation of High-Rise.

The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's

fiction 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". 

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 

entry describes Ballard's work as being

occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media 

and emergent technologies"

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 His mother was Edna,

 néeJohnstone.

Ballard was born and raised in the Shanghai

International Settlement, an area under foreign

control where people "lived an American style

of life".

 He was sent to the Cathedral School, the Anglican

Holy Trinity Church near the BundShanghai 

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese

War, Ballard's family were forced to evacuate their

suburban home temporarily and rent a house in

central Shanghai to avoid the shells fired by

Chinese and Japanese forces.

After the Japanese attack on Hong Kong, the

Japanese occupied the International Settlement

in Shanghai.

In early 1943, they began to intern 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.

As he explained later in his autobiography 

Miracles of Life, these experiences formed the

basis of Empire of the Sun, although Ballard

exercised considerable artistic licence in writing

the book, such as the removal of his parents

from the bulk of the story.

It has been 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. 

Martin Amis wrote that Empire of the Sun 

"gives shape to what shaped him." 

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.

" 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

time we children were playing a hundred

and one games all the time!" Ballard later

became an atheist.

Britain and Canada

In late 1945, after the end of the war, his

mother returned to Britain with Ballard and

his sister on the SS Arawa.

They lived in the outskirts of Plymouth, and

he attendedThe Leys School in Cambridge.

He won an essay prize whilst at the school

but did not contribute to the school magazine.

 After a couple of years his mother and sister

returned to China, rejoining Ballard's father, l

eaving Ballard to live with his grandparents

when not boarding at school.

In 1949 he went on to study medicine atKing's

College, Cambridge, with the intention of

becoming a psychiatrist.

At university, Ballard was writing avant-

garde fiction heavily influenced bypsycho-

analysis and surrealist painters.

At this time, he wanted to become a writer

as well as pursue a medical career.

In May 1951, when Ballard was in his second

year at Cambridge, his short story "The Violent Noon", 

a Hemingwayesque pastiche

written to please the contest's jury, won a crime

story competition and was published in the

student newspaper Varsity.

Encouraged by the publication of his story and

realising that clinical medicine would not leave

him time to write, Ballard abandoned his medical

studies, and in October 1951 he enrolled at 

Queen Mary College to read English Literature. 

However, he was asked to leave at the end

of the year.

Ballard then worked as a copywriter for an

advertising agency and as an encyclopaedia

salesman.

He kept writing short fiction but found it impos-

sible to get published.

In spring 1954 Ballard joined the Royal Air Force

 and was sent to the Royal Canadian Air Force 

flight-training base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,

Canada.

There he discovered science fiction inAmerican

magazines. 

While in the RAF, he also wrote his first science

fiction story, "Passport to Eternity", as a pastiche

and summary of the American science fiction he

had read.

The story did not see publication until 1962.

Ballard left the RAF in 1955 after thirteen

months and returned to England. 

In 1955 he married Helen Mary Matthews and

settled in Chiswick, the first of their three

children being born the following year.

He made his science fiction debut in 1956 with

two short stories, "Escapement" and "Prima

Belladonna", published in the December 1956

issues of New Worlds andScience Fantasy 

respectively. The editor of New Worlds, Edward J.

Carnell, would remain an important supporter

of Ballard's writing and would publish nearly all

of his early stories.

From 1958 Ballard worked as assistant editor

on the scientific journal Chemistry and Industry.

 His interest in art led to his involvement in

the emerging Pop Art movement, and in the

late fifties he exhibited a number of collages

 that represented his ideas for a new kind of

novel.

Ballard's avant-garde inclinations did not sit

comfortably in the science fiction mainstream

of that time, which held attitudes he

considered philistine.

Briefly attending the 1957 Science Fiction

Convention in London, Ballard left disillusioned

and demoralised and did not write another

story for a year.

By the late 1960s, however, he had become

an editor of the avant-garde Ambit magazine, 

which was more in keeping with his aesthetic

ideals.

Full-time writing career

In 1960 Ballard moved with his family to the

middle-class London suburb of Shepperton in

Surrey, where he lived for the rest of his life

and which would later give rise to his moniker

as the "Seer of Shepperton". 

Finding that commuting to work did not leave

him time to write, Ballard decided he had to

make a break and become a full-time writer.

He wrote his first novel, The Wind from Nowhere,

over a two-week holiday simply to gain a

foothold as a professional writer, not

intending it as a "serious novel"; in books

published later, it is omitted from the list of his

works. When it was successfully published in

January 1962, he resigned from his job at 

Chemistry and Industry, and from then on

supported himself and his family as a writer.

Later that year his second novel, 

The Drowned World, was published, establishing

Ballard as a notable figure in the fledgling 

New Wave movement of science fiction.

Collections of his stories started getting published,

and he began a period of great literary productivity,

while pushing to expand the scope of acceptable

material for science fiction with such stories as

"The Terminal Beach".