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
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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