J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai. After internment in a civilian prison camp, his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller ‘Empire of the Sun’ won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His controversial novel ‘Crash’ was made into a film by David Cronenberg. His autobiography ‘Miracles of Life’ was published in 2008, and a collection of interviews with the author, ‘Extreme Metaphors’, was published in 2012. J. G. Ballard passed away in 2009.

‘Brilliant and unnerving … Ballard is a writer with talent to burn’ The Times‘These stories – “condensed novels”, Ballard has called them – are a high-water mark in English experimental fiction’ New York Times‘A powerful book … Phrase and image are constantly disturbing and stimulating’ Sunday Telegraph‘The terrifying thing about Ballard is his logic; is this science fiction or history written ahead of its time?’ Len Deighton