Автор: J. G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard was a literary giant. His novels were unique and surprising. To the journalists and admirers who sought him out, Ballard was the ‘seer of Shepperton’; his home the vantage from which he observed the rising suburban tide, part of a changing society captured and second-guessed so plausibly in his fiction.Such acuity was not exclusive to his novels and, as this book reminds us, Ballard’s restive intelligence sharpened itself in dialogue. He entertained many with insights into the world as he saw it, and speculated, often correctly, about its future. Some of these observations…

‘This is autobiography taken to the highest reaches of fiction, another wonderful novel of scorching power, shot through with honesty and lyricism’ ObserverThe Kindness of Women continues the story of Jim, the young boy whose experiences in Japanese-occupied Shanghai were described in Empire of the Sun. It follows his return to post-war England, setting his childhood in the context of a lifetime.Jim tries, and fails, to find stability as a medical student at Cambridge, then as a trainee RAF pilot in Canada. Having finally settled into happy family life, his world is ripped apart by…

A terrifying vision of the future from one of the twentieth century’s most renowned writers – J. G. Ballard, author of ‘Empire of the Sun’ and ‘Crash’.Following the energy crisis of the late twentieth-century America has been abandoned. Now, a century later, an expedition from Europe returns to the deserted continent. But America is unrecognisable – the Bering Strait has been dammed and the whole continent has become a desert, populated by isolated natives and the bizarre remnants of a disintegrated culture.The expedition sets off from Manhattan on a cross-continent journey,…

First in a two volume collection of short stories by the acclaimed author of Empire of the Sun, Crash, Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.J.G. Ballard is firmly established as one of Britain’s most highly regarded and influential novelists. However, during his long career he was also a prolific writer of short stories, many of which show the germination of ideas he used in his longer fiction.This, the first book in a two-volume collection, offers a platform from which to view Ballard’s other works. Almost all of his novels had their seeds in short stories and this collection provides an…

The second in a two volume collection of acclaimed short stories by the author of Empire of the Sun, Crash, Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.JG Ballard is firmly established as one of Britain’s most highly regarded and influential novelists. However, during his long career he was also a prolific writer of short stories, many of which show the germination of ideas he used in his longer fiction.This, the second book in a two-volume collection, offers a platform from which to view Ballard’s other works. Almost all of his novels had their seeds in short stories and this collection provides an…

The heartrending story of a British boy’s four year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War.Based on J. G. Ballard’s own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy’s life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai – a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint.Rooted as it is in the author’s own disturbing experience of war in our time, it is one of a handful of novels by which the…

A high-security luxury housing estate in the Thames Valley sees a disturbing outbreak of violence in this compelling novella, newly reissued with an introduction from Adam Phillips.Pangbourne Village is exclusive, expensive and protected from the outside world by the very latest in security systems. A seeming idyll of family life; the perfect place to bring up a child. So why, in the space of ten minutes early one morning, were the thirty-two adult residents brutally murdered, and all thirteen children abducted? After months of fruitless investigation – and no word of the children or a…

This fast-paced narrative by the author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’ is a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a foray into the workings of the unconscious mind.Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes, either in the name of science or profit. While…

From J. G. Ballard, author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Cocaine Nights’ comes his extraordinary vision of an African forest that turns all in its path to crystal.Through a ‘leaking’ of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees metamorphose into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses. Most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand.But some, dazzled and strangely entranced, remain to drift through this dreamworld forest: a doctor in…

A high-tech business park on the Mediterranean coast is the setting for a most disturbing crime in this bestseller from the master of dystopia, J.G. Ballard.A disturbing mystery awaits Paul and Jane Sinclair when they arrive in Eden-Olympia, a high-tech business park in the hills above Cannes. Jane is to work as a doctor for those who live in this ultra-modern workers’ paradise. But what caused her predecessor to go on a shooting spree that made headlines around the world? As Paul investigates his new surroundings, he begins to uncover a thriving subculture of crime that is spiralling out…

A masterpiece of fiction from J. G. Ballard, which asks could Consumerism turn into Facism?A gunman opens fire in a shopping mall. Not a terrorist, apparently, but a madman with a rifle. Or not, as he is mysteriously (and quickly) set free without charge.One of the victims is the father of Richard Pearson, unemployed advertising executive and life-long rebel. Now he is driving out to Brooklands, the apparently peaceful town on the M25 which has at its heart the shining shoppers’ paradise where the shooting happened – the Metro-Centre. Richard, determined to unravel the mystery, starts to…

As he searches for the truth behind the Heathrow bomb that killed his ex-wife, psychologist David Markham infiltrates a shadowy protest group based in the comfortable Chelsea Marina.Led by a charismatic doctor, it aims to rouse the docile middle classes and to free them from the burdens of civic responsibility. Soon Markham is swept up in a campaign that spirals out of control – as the cornerstones of middle England become targets and growing panic grips the…

‘Snort up “Cocaine Nights”. It’s disorientating, deranging and knocks the work of other avant-garde writers into a hatted cock’ Will SelfFive people die in an unexplained house fire in the Spanish resort of Estrella de Mar, an exclusive enclave for the rich, retired British, centred on the thriving Club Nautico. The club manager, Frank Prentice, pleads guilty to charges of murder – yet not even the police believe him. When his Charles arrives to unravel the truth, he gradually discovers that behind the resort’s civilized façade flourishes a secret world of crime, drugs and…

By the bestselling author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’ – the world is threatened by dramatic climate change in this highly acclaimed and influential novel.Water. Man’s most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of…

Robert Maitland, a 35 year-old architect, is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control. Smashing through a temporary barrier he finds himself, dazed and disorientated, on a traffic island below three converging motorways. But when he tries to climb the embankment or flag-down a passing car for help it proves impossible – and he finds himself imprisoned on the concrete island. In this twisted version of ‘Robinson Crusoe’, Maitland must learn to survive – using only what he can find in his crashed car.As in all Ballard’s…

When Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man’s wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of auto-erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the…

A special limited edition of J. G. Ballard’s cult, post-modern and shocking novelI knew that Vaughan could never really die in a car-crash, but would in some way be re-born through those twisted radiator grilles and cascading windshield glass.The Collector’s EditionA former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, Robert Vaughan gathers around him a collection of alienated crash victims. Among them is James Ballard, our narrator, who is drawn into a series of erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. Vaughan craves the ultimate crash – a head on collision of…

From the author of The Sunday Times bestseller Cocaine Nights the story of suburban London transformed into an exotic dreamworld.When a light aircraft crashes into the Thames at Shepperton, the young pilot who struggles to the surface minutes later seems to have come back from the dead. Within hours everything in the dormitory suburb is surreally transformed. Vultures invade the rooftops, luxuriant tropical vegetation overruns the quiet avenues, and the local inhabitants are propelled by the young man’s urgent visions through ecstatic sexual celebrations towards an apocalyptic climax.In…

Veteran campaigner Dr Barbara Rafferty’s obsessive crusade to save the albatross on the Pacific atoll of Saint-Esprit suddenly gains international support when millions of TV viewers witness the shooting of her young acolyte Neil Dempsey on a foolhardy rescue mission. From the outpouring of support Dr Barbara begins to turn the deserted island into a sanctuary – a remote paradise for eco-enthusiasts, idealists and a growing number of the world’s endangered species.But as this sinister story unfolds it becomes clear that all is not as it seems in the ecological idyll, indeed, some…

First published in 1970 and widely regarded as a prophetic masterpiece, this is a groundbreaking experimental novel by the acclaimed author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Super-Cannes’.The irrational, all-pervading violence of the modern world is the subject of this extraordinary tour de force.The central character’s dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, dead astronauts and car-crash victims as he traverses the screaming wastes of nervous breakdown. Seeking his sanity, he casts himself in a number of roles: H-bomber pilot, presidential assassin, crash victim,…