j.g.ballard

James Graham Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was a prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction, but his best-known books are the controversial Crash (1973), an exploration of automobile-accident sexual fetishism, and the autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun (1984).[1] The latter was based on his boyhood in Shanghai, where he was born in the International Settlement, and on his internment by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War. Both novels were adapted into films, by David Cronenberg and Steven Spielberg respectively.

The literary distinctiveness of his work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian," defined by the Collins English Dictionary as “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard’s novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.” [2]

Ballard was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June 2006, from which he died in London in April 2009.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard