Empire of the Sun

The classic, heartrending story of a British boy''s four year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Newly reissued with an introduction by John Lanchester. Based on J. G. Ballard''s own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy''s life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai - a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint. Rooted as it is in the author''s own disturbing experience of war in our time, it is one of a handful of novels by which the twentieth century will be not only remembered but judged. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard''s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Zadie Smith, Rivka Galchen, Hari Kunzru and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs from the artist Stanley Donwood.