The following is taken from this article in The Guardian.
JG Ballard, novelist and short-story writer, has died after a long battle will illness, his agent has said.
The 78-year-old author, who was best known for the award-winning Empire of the Sun, a semi-autobiographical novel written in 1984, and his controversial novel, Crash, later adapted into film by David Cronenberg.
His agent, Margaret Hanbury, said it was “with great sadness” that Ballard had passed away this morning after several years of ill health.
Member of the New Wave of science fiction authors, JG Ballard was one of the first science fiuction authors I read in the sixties. I remember reading The Drowned World, The Crystal World and The Terminal Beach (which I still have in my library). Not my favorite science fiction author – too “psychological” for my taste – I was in to hard science fiction.
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Dusty Loft 