J.G. Ballard’s heartrending account of a young British boy’s four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War.

Based on J. G. Ballard’s own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy’s life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai. The result is a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. This is a book that blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint.

Shortlisted
The Booker Prize 1984
Published by
Gollancz
Publication date

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J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard

About the Author

J.G. Ballard was at the forefront of modern British fiction writing for over three decades and became a bestselling writer of international stature.
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