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Yes, even though it seems reductive to say that there is a "skeleton key" to any artist, with Ballard it's so clear that his feral childhood in the Shanghai internment camp shaped his life's work .

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I like what Anthony Burgess said about Ballard: "Ballard considers that the kind of limitation that most contemporary fiction accepts is immoral, a shameful consequence of the rise of the bourgeois novel. Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination."

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Nice

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Why haven't I heard of Ballard before? Thanks for bringing him to my attention - searching out these books now.

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Makes my day!

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Thanks for this introduction! I notice more and more that my childhood library seems to have been skewed toward American science fiction writers. So it's only in adulthood that I'm discovering vintage British science fiction.

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Such a nice feeling to be opening doors for readers! Thanks for commenting!

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