Home
literary collections
social science
literary criticism
Selected Nonfiction, 1962–2007

Selected Nonfiction, 1962–2007

by J. G. Ballard

Edited by Mark Blacklock

Foreword by Tom McCarthy

$32.95 Hardcover
eBook

424 pp., 6 x 9 in,

Hardcover
9780262048323
Published: October 24, 2023
Publisher: The MIT Press

$32.95

eBook
9780262375733
Published: October 24, 2023
Publisher: The MIT Press

$32.99

MIT Press Bookstore
Penguin Random House
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop.org
Indiebound
Indigo
Books a Million

Other Retailers:

MIT Press Bookstore
Penguin Random House
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop.org
Indiebound
Indigo
Books a Million
Amazon.co.uk
Blackwells
Bookshop.org
Foyles
Hive
Waterstones

Request permissions

Description
Author(s)
Praise

J. G. Ballard's collected nonfiction from 1962 to 2007, mapping the cultural obsessions, experiences, and insights of one of the most original minds of his generation.

J. G. Ballard was a colossal figure in English literature and an imaginative force of the twentieth century. Alongside seminal novels—from the notorious Crash (1973) to the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun (1984)—Ballard was a sought-after reviewer and commentator, publishing journalism, memoir, and cultural criticism in a variety of forms. This volume collects the most significant short nonfiction of Ballard's fifty-year career, extending the range of the only previous collection of his nonfiction, A User's Guide to the Millennium (1996), which selected essays and reviews published between 1962 and 1995.

A decade on from Ballard's death in 2009, a new generation of readers needs a new collection. In the period following A User's Guide, Ballard's writing addressed 9/11, British politics from New Labour onward, and what he termed “the rise of soft fascism”—a diagnosis that maintains its relevance amid a shift toward right populism in European and US politics. Beautifully edited by Ballard scholar and novelist Mark Blacklock, this volume includes Ballard's editorials and manifestos; commentaries on his own work; commentaries on the work of others; reviews; and more. Above all, it makes the case for the currency of Ballard's work at a contemporary juncture at which so many of his diagnoses concerning the media and politics have become apparent.

James Graham “J.G.” Ballard (1930-2009) was a British author and journalist. Best known for his dystopic works of science fiction, his novels include Crash (1973) and High-Rise (1975). His semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun (1984) was adapted by Stephen Spielberg in the 1987 film of the same name. Luminous, wry, and arresting, Ballard's writing endures as a touchstone for popular conceptions of post-apocalyptic landscapes, mass media, and emergent technologies.

Mark Blacklock is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of the cultural history The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension, and his most recent novel Hinton was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2021.

“If everything for Ballard is fiction, what makes for inclusion in a selection of his nonfiction? Aware of his challenge, Blacklock hopes to 'illuminate the full range of Ballard's activities as a reviewer, essayist, journalist, commentator, memoirist, provocateur, compiler of lists, and talking head.' He achieves this handsomely.”
The Times Literary Supplement

“Ballard is exceptionally prescient, capturing a world that didn't yet fully exist or wasn't visible to most.”
ArtReview

“As George Orwell died in January 1950 and J. G. Ballard began to publish professionally in 1956 we can describe the first as the greatest author of the twentieth century, and Ballard as the greatest author of the second part of the twentieth.”
The Orwell Society

Books

Authors

On the site

Selected Nonfiction, 1962–2007

Selected Nonfiction, 1962–2007

Related Books