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20/04/2009
Author JG Ballard Dies After Long Ilness
Award-winning novelist and short story writer JG Ballard has died aged 78, following a long illness.
Tributes have poured in for the acclaimed author, best known for Empire of the Sun and Crash, who referred to him as a "brilliant" and "powerful" writer.
The 78-year-old author of 15 novels, born in Shanghai, China, wrote Empire of the Sun about his childhood struggle to survive in a Japanese-run internee camp.
His agent Margaret Hanbury said he had been ill for "several years" and had passed away on Sunday morning.
"He had the secret," his friend Iain Sinclair said. "He was an absolutely rigorous craftsman. His productivity is just astonishing.
"He was a major stylist, he had a very clean, clear, forensic style which meant that his work translated into all languages very well.
"His ideas were way ahead of their time."
Empire of the Sun, which won several literary prizes, brought Ballard widespread success when it was turned into a film by Steven Spielberg in 1987.
He said of his experiences: "I have - I won't say happy - not unpleasant memories of the camp. I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on, but at the same time we children were playing a hundred and one games all the time!"
Director David Cronenberg also brought his book Crash - which explored the sexual desires stimulated by car crashes - to the mainstream, and added to Ballard's reputation for courting controversy.
Ballard is survived by his three children and by his long-term partner Claire.
(JM/BMcC)
Tributes have poured in for the acclaimed author, best known for Empire of the Sun and Crash, who referred to him as a "brilliant" and "powerful" writer.
The 78-year-old author of 15 novels, born in Shanghai, China, wrote Empire of the Sun about his childhood struggle to survive in a Japanese-run internee camp.
His agent Margaret Hanbury said he had been ill for "several years" and had passed away on Sunday morning.
"He had the secret," his friend Iain Sinclair said. "He was an absolutely rigorous craftsman. His productivity is just astonishing.
"He was a major stylist, he had a very clean, clear, forensic style which meant that his work translated into all languages very well.
"His ideas were way ahead of their time."
Empire of the Sun, which won several literary prizes, brought Ballard widespread success when it was turned into a film by Steven Spielberg in 1987.
He said of his experiences: "I have - I won't say happy - not unpleasant memories of the camp. I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on, but at the same time we children were playing a hundred and one games all the time!"
Director David Cronenberg also brought his book Crash - which explored the sexual desires stimulated by car crashes - to the mainstream, and added to Ballard's reputation for courting controversy.
Ballard is survived by his three children and by his long-term partner Claire.
(JM/BMcC)
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