“I was born in the city's general hospital on November 15, 1930, and we lived at 31 Amherst Avenue in the western suburbs. It was a magical place. There were receptions at the French Club, race meetings at the Shanghai Racecourse, and various patriotic gatherings at the British Embassy on the Bund, the city's glamorous waterfront area.”

English novelist and short-story writer

James Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short-story writer, satirist, and essayist. He became known for fiction that probes the uneasy ties between psychology, technology, sex, and mass media, and for work that often challenged readers. He first became linked with New Wave science fiction through post-apocalyptic novels such as The Drowned World (1962). Later, he drew controversy with The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which includes the 1968 story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan", and with Crash (1973), a novel about car-crash fetishists.