born Nov. 15, 1930, Shanghai, China
British writer.
Ballard spent four years of his childhood in a Japanese prison camp, an experience he described in Empire of the Sun (1984; film, 1987). His science fiction is often set in ecologically unbalanced landscapes caused by decadent technological excess. His apocalyptic novels, often shockingly violent, include Crash (1973; film, 1996), Concrete Island (1974), and High Rise (1975). His later works include the short-story collection War Fever (1990) and the novels The Kindness of Women (1991) and Cocaine Nights (1998).