Book description
'Miracles of Life' opens and closes in Shanghai, the city where J.
G.Ballard was born, and where he spent the most of the Second World War
interned with his family in a Japanese concentration camp.
J. G. Ballard has been, for over fifty years, one of this country's
most significant writers. Beginning with the events that inspired his
classic novel, “Empire of the Sun”, in this revelatory autobiography he
charts the course of his astonishing life.
“Miracles of Life” takes us from the vibrant surroundings of pre-war
Shanghai, to the deprivations and unexpected freedoms of Lunghua Camp,
to Ballard's arrival in a devastated Britain. Ballard recounts his first
attempts at fiction and his part in the social and artistic revolutions
of the 60s. He describes his friendships with figures as diverse as
Kingsley Amis, Michael Moorcock and Eduardo Paolozzi alongside
recollections of his domestic life in Shepperton - raising three
children as a single father following the unexpected and premature death
of his wife.
“Miracles of Life” is both a captivating narrative of the experiences
that have shaped this extraordinary writer's works, his distinctive
outlook and his original visions of the future, and is also an account
of a remarkable life. 'Superb. Mr Ballard, you are wonderful.' Sunday Times
'Exquisitely written … “Miracles of Life”, as subtle, restlessly
enquiring work of touching humanity, is Ballard's crowning achievement.'
Financial Times
'Brief, modest and occasionally shattering, in a way that elevates it
to a level of greatness.' Observer
'A jewel. As a writer, he can simply take the breath away.' Independent
'Remarkable … treating events which most of us can barely imagine with
tranquil dignity and exactness. An unforgettable farewell.' Spectator
J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a
businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his
family returned to England in 1946. He published his first novel, The
Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 bestseller 'Empire of the Sun' won the
Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was
shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven
Spielberg. His most recent novel is 'Kingdom Come', published in 2006.
