THERE is no doubt that J G Ballard is an important writer of our time. This is an enthralling autobiography tracing his life from his birth in Shanghai through to his early writing career and his days as a single-parent after the premature death of his wi

THERE is no doubt that J G Ballard is an important writer of our time. This is an enthralling autobiography tracing his life from his birth in Shanghai through to his early writing career and his days as a single-parent after the premature death of his wife.

Ballard's childhood experiences in a Second World War Japanese prison camp shaped his life - and gave us, too, Empire of the Sun and its sequel, The Kindness of Women.

Ballard, too, explores the dramatic changes of the 1960s and the part events played in his life and shaped his writing. This led, of course, to writing of such novels as the controversial Crash and the extraordinary Concrete Island. 5/5