J. G. Ballard
J. G. Ballard | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Graham Ballard 15 November 1930 Shanghai International Settlement, China |
| Died | 19 April 2009 (aged 78) London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Literary movement | New Wave |
| Notable works | Crash Empire of the Sun |
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).[1]
Life
[change | change source]Shanghai
[change | change source]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".[2] 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.[3][4][5]
England and Canada
[change | change source]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.[6] 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,[7]
Ballard continued to write until the end of his life. He died of prostate cancer in London.
Influence
[change | change source]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
[change | change source]Novels
[change | change source]
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Short story collections
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Other
[change | change source]- A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews (1996)
- Miracles of Life (Autobiography; 2008)
Adaptations
[change | change source]Films
[change | change source]- 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[9]
- Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude (2002), dir. Solveig Nordlund. (Portuguese adaptation of the short story "Low Flying Aircraft")[10]
Television
[change | change source]- "Thirteen to Centaurus" (1965) from the short story of the same name – dir. Peter Potter (BBC Two)
- Crash! (1971) dir. Harley Cokliss[11]
- "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
[change | change source]- ↑ McNeil, Joanne (July 2009). "Death of a Dystopian: The life and legacy of J.G. Ballard". Reason. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
- ↑ Pringle, D. (Ed.) and Ballard, J.G. (1982). "From Shanghai to Shepperton". Re/Search 8/9: J.G. Ballard: 112–124. ISBN 0-940642-08-5.
- ↑ Cowley, J. (4 November 2001). "The Ballard of Shanghai jail". The Observer. Retrieved on 25 April 2009.
- ↑ Hall, C. "JG Ballard: Extreme Metaphor: A Crash Course In The Fiction Of JG Ballard". Retrieved on 25 April 2009.
- ↑ Livingstone, D.B. (1996?). "J.G. Ballard: Crash: Prophet with Honour". Retrieved 12 March 2006.
- ↑ Alumni at Queen Mary, University of London Archived 2011-06-14 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 24 October 2009.
- ↑ Collinson, G. "Empire of the Sun Archived 2004-02-06 at the Wayback Machine". BBC Four article on the film and novel. Retrieved on 25 April 2009.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 None of the "complete" collections are in fact fully exhaustive, since they contain only some of the Atrocity Exhibition stories.
- ↑ REEL23: The Atrocity Exhibition Archived 2013-02-15 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 25 April 2009.
- ↑ Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude on IMDb
- ↑ Sellars, S. (10 August 2007). "Crash! Full-Tilt Autogeddon Archived 2009-02-04 at the Wayback Machine". Ballardian.com. Retrieved on 25 April 2009.
Bibliography
[change | change source]- Ballard, J.G. (1984). Empire of the Sun. ISBN 0-00-654700-1.
- Ballard, J.G. (1991). The Kindness of Women. ISBN 0-00-654701-X.
- Ballard, J.G. (1993). The Atrocity Exhibition (expanded and annotated edition). ISBN 0-00-711686-1.
- 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. ISBN 978-0-8264-9726-0
- Brigg, Peter (1985). J.G. Ballard. Rpt. Borgo Press/Wildside Press. ISBN 0893709530
- Collins English Dictionary Archived 2005-12-31 at the Wayback Machine. ISBN 0-00-719153-7. 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. ISBN 9780719070532
- 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. ISBN 9780853238317
- 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. ISBN 0-940642-08-5.
- 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 Archived 2006-05-08 at the Wayback Machine). RE/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-13-0
- V. Vale (ed.) and Ryan, Mike (ed). (2005). "J.G. Ballard: Quotes" (excerpts Archived 2006-06-15 at the Wayback Machine). RE/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-12-2
Other websites
[change | change source]
- J. G. Ballard at the Open Directory Project
- J. G. Ballard on IMDb
- 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)
- [1] Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine 2008 profile of J. G. Ballard by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal magazine
- articles, reviews and essays
- Thomas Frick (Winter 1984). "J. G. Ballard, The Art of Fiction No. 85". Paris Review. Winter 1984 (94).
- Landscapes From a Dream Archived 2020-12-29 at the Wayback Machine, J G Ballard and modern art
- The Marriage of Reason and Nightmare, City Journal, Winter 2008 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
- Miracles of Life reviewed by Karl Miller Archived 2011-05-17 at the Wayback Machine 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 Archived 2012-02-18 at the Wayback Machine 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 Archived 2007-08-07 at the Wayback Machine at Japan Center for Asian Historical Records
- obituaries and remembrances
- Obituary Archived 2009-10-14 at the Wayback Machine 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 Archived 2009-04-26 at the Wayback Machine by V. Vale from RE/Search
- Letter From London: The J.G. Ballard Memorial Archived 2021-01-27 at the Wayback Machine