UnHerd Academy

Nina Allan on J. G. Ballard


April 21, 2026
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J. G. Ballard possessed one of the most astonishing imaginations of our age. His turbulent personal history, including internment in a Japanese prison camp as a teenager during the Second World War, led him to write some of the most esoteric fiction that has ever been published. Whether in the hyper-surrealism of High Rise or the erotic violence of Crash, Ballard upended the morality and reality of our world. Join Nina Allan, science fiction writer and co-author of the new Ballard biography, The Illuminated Man, for an introduction to his life and work.


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