Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, an Autobiography (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780871404206)

Never before published in America, this revelatory autobiography--hailed as "fascinating [and] amazingly lucid" (Guardian)--charts the remarkable story of James Graham Ballard, a man described by Martin Amis as "the most original English writer of the last century." Beginning with his Shanghai childhood, Miracles of Life guides us from the deprivations of Lunghua Camp during World War II, which provide the back story for his best-selling Empire of the Sun, to his arrival in war-torn England and his emergence as "the ideal chronicler of our disturbed modernity" (Observer). With prose of characteristic precision, Ballard movingly recalls his first attempts at science fiction, the 1970 American pulping of The Atrocity Exhibition--which sprang from his fascination with JFK conspiracy theories--and his life as a single father after the premature death of his wife. "This book should make yet more converts to a cause that Ballard's devotees have been pleading for years" (Independent).

Author: J. G. Ballard
ISBN-10: 0871404206
ISBN-13: 9780871404206
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 02/04/2013
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2012
Publishers Weekly 11/05/2012
Booklist 01/01/2013 pg. 32
Shelf Awareness 02/05/2013