One of the UK’s greatest (and most underrated) writers, JG Ballard, died last week. He is probably most famous for his novel Empire of the Sun,which tells the story of an English boy growing up in China during the WW2 Japanese occupation.The historical and autobiographical nature of Empire of the Sun (subsequently made into an excellent film by Steven Spielberg) is untypical of most of Ballard’s work, which is more concerned with an immediate future. His bleak vision of the corrosive impact of technology and the modern environment on human society is described as "dystopian" by his biographers.
Like many of his admirers, I discovered Ballard's work through Empire of the Sun, and have only recently read four of his other works: Crash (which became notorious following the release of the David Cronenberg film of the same name), High Rise. Concrete Island and his last novel, Kingdom Come, all of which expertly depict the fragility of civilisation in the modern world.
Ballard's books aroused strong passions - the US publishers of the Atrocity Exhibition (which I have not yet read) withdrew it from publication due to the furore over its controversial content: yet the author himself preferred a quiet family life in Shepperton, seldom courting publicity or self-promotion.
