Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton : an Autobiography

Ballard, J. G.

ISBN 10: 0007272340 / ISBN 13: 9780007272341

Published by Fourth Estate, 2014

About this Item

Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. This book is in good condition but will show signs of previous ownership. Please expect some creasing to the spine and/or minor damage to the cover. Damaged book. Slightly damaged in some way typically, a grazed corner or torn cover.

Seller Inventory # CHL10493297

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton : an Autobiography
• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007272340
• ISBN 13: 9780007272341
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Used; Good

About this title

Synopsis

J. G. Ballard was, 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’, this revelatory autobiography 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.

This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ali Smith, Hari Kunzru, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.

About the Author

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. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J. G. Ballard died in 2009.