Vermilion Sands

J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, China. After the attack on Pearl Harbour the family was interned in a civilian camp. They returned to England in 1946. In 1956 Ballard's first story was published in New Worlds. His first novel, The Drowned World, was published in 1962. Empire of the Sun, a novel based on his own experience in China, was published in 1984 and won the Guardian Fiction Prize, the James Tait Black Award and was filmed by Steven Spielberg. He is the author of many collections of short stories and novels, including Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.

"Pure, weird pleasure" Los Angeles Times "Ballard's best and most characteristic work is in his early novels and short stories" New Statesman "The most significant English novelist of the second half of the 20th century" -- Will Self Prospect "A writer of enormous inventive powers, Ballard has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filing the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with invisible cities and the wonder worlds of the imagination" -- Malcolm Bradbury New York Times Book Review "Ballard is a magician and a literary saboteur...He is one of the few genuine surrealists this country has produced, the possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination - and a national treasure" Guardian