“There were no museums or galleries in Shanghai, but I was very keen on art - I was always sketching and copying, and sometimes I think that my whole career as a writer has been the substitute work of an unfulfilled painter.”

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.