Miracles of Life

Never before published in America, this revelatory autobiography—hailed as “fascinating [and] amazingly lucid” (Guardian)—charts the remarkable story of James Graham Ballard, a man described by Martin Amis as “the most original English writer of the last century.” Beginning with his Shanghai childhood, Miracles of Life guides us from the deprivations of Lunghua Camp during World War II, which provide the back story for his best-selling Empire of the Sun, to his arrival in war-torn England and his emergence as “the ideal chronicler of our disturbed modernity” (Observer). With prose of characteristic precision, Ballard movingly recalls his first attempts at science fiction, the 1970 American pulping of The Atrocity Exhibition—which sprang from his fascination with JFK conspiracy theories—and his life as a single father after the premature death of his wife.

“This book should make yet more converts to a cause that Ballard’s devotees have been pleading for years” (Independent).

©2008 J. G. Ballard (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

A Strange, Rapid Portrait of a Surrealist of Shadows

Admirers of Ballard will love it--but they'll want a lot more. Years ago, I read all of the author's works over the course of a year, and I felt Miracles of Life was somehow perfunctory and even redundant. But its existence alone is aptly strange in a Ballardian way. At the time I write this, in spring 2026, the cover has not been added to the audiobook. I hope this is corrected soon.