Editing J. G. Ballard (section)

== Life ==
===Shanghai===
J. G. Ballard was born to Edna Johnstone (1905–1998)<ref name=autogenerated1/> and James Graham Ballard (1901–1966), who was a chemist at the [[Calico Printers' Association]], a textile company in the city of [[Manchester]], and later became the chairman and managing director of the China Printing and Finishing Company, the Association's subsidiary company in Shanghai.<ref name=autogenerated1/> The China in which Ballard was born featured the [[Shanghai International Settlement]], where Western foreigners "lived an American style of life".<ref name="pringle">[[David Pringle|Pringle, D.]] (Ed.) and Ballard, J.G. (1982). "From Shanghai to Shepperton". ''Re/Search'' '''8/9''': J.G. Ballard: 112–124. {{ISBN|0-940642-08-5}}.</ref> At school age, Ballard attended the Cathedral School of the [[Holy Trinity Church, Shanghai]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Books__Film-Book_features/11260/JG-Ballard-in-Shanghai.html|title=JG Ballard in Shanghai|website=Timeoutshanghai.com|access-date=21 May 2018|archive-date=2 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602185521/http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Books__Film-Book_features/11260/JG-Ballard-in-Shanghai.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Upon the outbreak of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]] (1937–1945), the Ballard family abandoned their suburban house, and moved to a house in the city centre of Shanghai to avoid the warfare between the Chinese defenders and the Japanese invaders.

After the [[Battle of Hong Kong]] (8–25 December 1941), the Imperial Japanese Army occupied the International Settlement and imprisoned the Allied civilians in early 1943. The Ballard family were sent to the [[Lunghua Civilian Assembly Centre]] where they lived in G-block, a two-storey residence for 40 families, for the remainder of the Second World War. At the Lunghua Centre, Ballard attended school, where the teachers were prisoners with a profession. In the autobiography ''Miracles of Life'', Ballard said that those experiences of displacement and imprisonment were the thematic bases of the novel ''Empire of the Sun''.<ref name="lookback">Ballard, J.G. (4 March 2006). "[http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1722984,00.html Look back at Empire] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080111044214/http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1722984,00.html |date=11 January 2008 }}". ''The Guardian''. Retrieved 25 April 2009.</ref><ref name="rickmcgrath">{{cite web |url=http://www.jgballard.ca/ |title=J.G. Ballard |website=Jgballard.ca |access-date=3 July 2014 |archive-date=4 January 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130104163735/http://www.jgballard.ca/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Concerning the violence found in Ballard's fiction,<ref>Cowley, J. (4 November 2001). "[http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,587000,00.html The Ballard of Shanghai jail] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724145628/http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,587000,00.html |date=24 July 2008 }}". ''The Observer''. Retrieved 25 April 2009.</ref><ref name="livingstone">Livingstone, D.B. (1996?). "[http://www.spikemagazine.com/0899ballard.php J.G. Ballard: Crash: Prophet with Honour] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821142454/http://www.spikemagazine.com/0899ballard.php |date=21 August 2016 }}". Retrieved 12 March 2006.</ref> the novelist [[Martin Amis]] said that ''Empire of the Sun'' "gives shape to what shaped him."<ref name="spike1">Hall, C. "[http://www.spikemagazine.com/0697lard.php JG Ballard: Extreme Metaphor: A Crash Course in the Fiction Of JG Ballard] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170125020730/http://www.spikemagazine.com/0697lard.php |date=25 January 2017 }}". Retrieved 25 April 2009.</ref> About his experiences of the Japanese war in China, Ballard said: "I don't think you can go through the experience of war without one's perceptions of the world being forever changed. The reassuring stage-set that everyday reality in the suburban West presents to us is torn down; you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that, and it can be a frightening experience."<ref name="livingstone"/> "I have—I won't say ''happy''—[but] not unpleasant memories of the camp... I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on—but, at the same time, we children were playing a hundred and one games all the time!"<ref name="pringle"/> In his later life, Ballard became an atheist, yet said: "I'm extremely interested in religion ... I see religion as a key to all sorts of mysteries that surround the [[human consciousness]]."<ref>Welch, Frances. "All Praise and Glory to the Mind of Man"</ref>

===Britain and Canada===
In late 1945, Ballard's mother returned to Britain with J. G. and his sister, where they resided at [[Plymouth]], and he attended [[The Leys School]] in Cambridge,<ref name=SFiction>{{cite web |last=Campbell|first=James|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/14/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview10 |title=Strange Fiction|date=14 June 2008|work=The Guardian}}</ref> where he won a prize for a well-written essay.<ref name="Pringle"/> Within a few years, Mrs Ballard and her daughter returned to China and rejoined Mr Ballard; and, whilst not at school, Ballard resided with grandparents. In 1949, he studied medicine at [[King's College, Cambridge]], with the intention of becoming a [[psychiatry|psychiatrist]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Frick|first=Interviewed by Thomas|date=21 May 1984|title=J. G. Ballard, The Art of Fiction No. 85|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2929/j-g-ballard-the-art-of-fiction-no-85-j-g-ballard|journal=The Paris Review|volume=Winter 1984|issue=94|access-date=21 May 2018}}</ref>
[[File:Fantastic 196207.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Ballard's [[Vermilion Sands]] story "The Singing Statues" took the cover of the July 1962 issue of ''[[Fantastic (magazine)|Fantastic]]'', featuring artwork by [[Ed Emshwiller]].]]
At university, Ballard wrote [[avant-garde]] fiction influenced by [[psychoanalysis]] and the works of [[surrealism|surrealist]] painters, and pursued writing fiction and medicine. In his second year at Cambridge, in May 1951, the short story "The Violent Noon", a Hemingway [[pastiche]], won a crime-story competition and was published in the ''[[Varsity (Cambridge)|Varsity]]'' newspaper.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/40c6c3d5-4163-39ea-b085-0cff9f356266|title=The Papers of James Graham Ballard – Archives Hub|access-date=28 March 2020|archive-date=28 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328105108/https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/40c6c3d5-4163-39ea-b085-0cff9f356266|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ballardian.com/collecting-the-violent-noon-and-other-assorted-ballardiana |title=Collecting 'The Violent Noon' and other assorted Ballardiana |publisher=Ballardian |date=5 February 2007 |access-date=3 July 2014 |archive-date=4 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090204192744/http://www.ballardian.com/collecting-the-violent-noon-and-other-assorted-ballardiana |url-status=dead }}</ref> In October 1951, encouraged by publication, and understanding that clinical medicine disallowed time to write fiction, Ballard forsook medicine and enrolled at [[Queen Mary University of London|Queen Mary College]] to read English literature.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/notablealumni/24997.html|title=Notable Alumni/ Arts and Culture|publisher=Queen Mary, University of London|access-date=8 August 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020112410/http://www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/notablealumni/24997.html|archive-date=20 October 2014}}</ref> After a year, he quit the College and worked as an advertising copywriter,<ref name="lrb.co.uk">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n07/thomas-jones/whisky-and-soda-man|title=Whisky and Soda Man|first=Thomas|last=Jones|date=10 April 2008|pages=18–20|access-date=21 May 2018|magazine=London Review of Books|archive-date=29 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191129100913/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n07/thomas-jones/whisky-and-soda-man|url-status=live}}</ref> then worked as an itinerant encyclopaedia salesman.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ballardian.com/ballards-adventures-in-advertising-1|title='What exactly is he trying to sell?': J.G. Ballard's Adventures in Advertising, part 1|website=Ballardian.com|access-date=21 May 2018|date=4 May 2009|archive-date=22 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180422063034/http://www.ballardian.com/ballards-adventures-in-advertising-1|url-status=dead}}</ref> Throughout that odd-job period, Ballard continued writing short-story fiction but found no publisher.<ref name="Pringle">{{cite news|last=Pringle|first=David|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/19/jg-ballard-obituary |title=Obituary:JG Ballard |date=19 April 2009|access-date=3 June 2014|newspaper=The Guardian|author-link=David Pringle }}</ref>

In early 1954, Ballard joined the [[Royal Air Force]] and was assigned to the [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] flight-training base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. In that time, he encountered American [[science fiction magazine]]s,<ref name="lrb.co.uk"/> and, in due course, wrote his first science fiction story, "Passport to Eternity", a pastiche of the American science fiction genre; yet the story was not published until 1962.<ref name="Pringle"/>

In 1955, Ballard left the RAF and returned to England,<ref>''London Gazette'', 1 July 1955.</ref> where he met and married Helen Mary Matthews, who was a secretary at the ''Daily Express'' newspaper; the first of three Ballard children was born in 1956.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/20/jg-ballard-daughter-mother-couldnt-mention|title=JG Ballard's Daughter on the Mother who Could Never be Mentioned|date=20 June 2014|website=the Guardian}}</ref> In December 1956, Ballard became a professional science-fiction writer with the publication of the short stories "Escapement" (in ''[[New Worlds (magazine)|New Worlds]]'' magazine) and "Prima Belladonna" (in ''[[Science Fantasy (magazine)|Science Fantasy]]'' magazine).<ref name="NYTOrbit">{{cite news|last=Weber|first=Bruce|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/books/21ballard.html|title=J.G Ballard, novelist, Is Dead at 78|date=21 April 2009|access-date=15 October 2014|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|archive-date=10 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151010185125/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/books/21ballard.html|url-status=live}}</ref> At the ''New Worlds'' magazine, the editor, [[John Carnell|Edward J. Carnell]], greatly supported Ballard's science-fiction writing, and published most of his early stories.

From 1958 onwards, Ballard was assistant editor of the scientific journal ''Chemistry and Industry''.<ref name=ChemLife>{{cite web|last=Bonsall|first=Mike|url=http://www.ballardian.com/jg-ballards-experiment-in-chemical-living|title=JG Ballard's Experiment in Chemical Living|date=1 August 2007|website=Ballardian.com|access-date=1 April 2015|archive-date=18 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150418161222/http://www.ballardian.com/jg-ballards-experiment-in-chemical-living|url-status=dead}}</ref> His interest in art involved the emerging [[Pop Art]] movement, and, in the late 1950s, Ballard exhibited [[collage]]s that represented his ideas for a new kind of novel. Moreover, his avant-garde inclinations discomfited writers of mainstream science fiction, whose artistic attitudes Ballard considered [[Philistinism|philistine]]. Briefly attending the 1957 [[Worldcon|World Science Fiction Convention]] in London, Ballard left disillusioned and demoralised by the type and quality of the science-fiction writing he encountered, and did not write another story for a year;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jgballard.ca/media/1969_feb_speculation_magazine.html|title=JG Ballard Interviewed by Jannick Storm|website=Jgballard.ca|access-date=1 April 2015|archive-date=16 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016001008/http://www.jgballard.ca/media/1969_feb_speculation_magazine.html|url-status=live}}</ref> however, by 1965, he was editor of ''[[Ambit (magazine)|Ambit]]'', an avante-garde magazine, which had an editorial remit amenable to his [[aesthetic]] ideals.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jgballard.ca/terminal_collection/jgb_ambits.html|title=JGB in Ambit Magazine|website=Jgballard.ca|access-date=7 April 2015|archive-date=30 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140730101536/http://www.jgballard.ca/terminal_collection/jgb_ambits.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="auto1">{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-101436|isbn = 978-0-19-861412-8|doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/101436|title = The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year = 2004}}</ref>

===Professional writer===
In 1960, the Ballard family moved to [[Shepperton]], Surrey, where he resided till his death in 2009.<ref>{{cite news|last=Clark|first=Alex|title=Microdoses of madness|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/09/fiction.jgballard|access-date=3 October 2014|newspaper=The Guardian|date=9 September 2000|archive-date=6 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006223017/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/09/fiction.jgballard|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Karl|title=The Velvet Underground of English Letters: Simon Sellars Discusses J.G. Ballard|url=http://thequietus.com/articles/10226-ballard-extreme-metaphors-simon-sellars-interviewed|website=thequietus.com|date=7 October 2012 |access-date=3 October 2014}}</ref> To become a professional writer, Ballard forsook mainstream employment to write his first novel, ''[[The Wind from Nowhere]]'' (1962), during a fortnight holiday,<ref name="auto1"/> and quit his editorial job with the ''Chemistry and Industry'' magazine. Later that year, his second novel, ''[[The Drowned World]]'' (1962), also was published; those two novels established Ballard as a notable writer of [[New Wave science fiction]]; he also popularized the related concept and genre of [[Inner space (science fiction)|inner space]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian M. |title=Science fact and science fiction: an encyclopedia |date=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-97460-8 |location=New York, NY}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=415}}<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last1=Clute |first1=John |last2=David |first2=Langford |last3=Nicholls |first3=Peter |title=SFE: Inner Space |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/inner_space |access-date=2024-03-05 |website=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |archive-date=20 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231220183330/https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/inner_space |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Mayo |first=Rob |url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-030-27275-3.pdf |title=Healthy Minds in the Twentieth Century: In and Beyond the Asylum |date=2019-09-16 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-27275-3 |editor-last=Taylor |editor-first=Steven J. |language=en |chapter=The Myth of Dream-Hacking and ‘Inner Space’ in Science Fiction, 1948-201 |series=Mental Health in Historical Perspective |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-27275-3 |editor-last2=Brumby |editor-first2=Alice |access-date=5 March 2024 |archive-date=28 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228192243/https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-030-27275-3.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|pages=260}} From that success followed the publication of short-story collections, and was the beginning of a great period of literary productivity from which emerged the short-story collection ''[[The Terminal Beach]]'' (1964).
[[File:Fantastic 196310.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Another Emshwiller cover illustrating the [[Vermilion Sands]] story "The Screen Game" (1963)]]
[[File:If 196303.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Ballard's novelette "The Time Tombs" was the cover story on the March 1963 issue of ''[[If (magazine)|If]]''.]]
In 1964, Mary Ballard died of pneumonia, leaving Ballard to raise their three children, James, Fay and [[Bea Ballard]]. Although he did not remarry, his friend [[Michael Moorcock]] introduced Claire Walsh to Ballard, who later became his partner.<ref>"Author J. G. Ballard dies at 78", [[Deseret News]], 20 April 2009, p. A12</ref> Claire Walsh worked in publishing during the 1960s and the 1970s, and was Ballard's sounding board for his story ideas; later, Claire introduced Ballard to the expatriate community in [[Sophia Antipolis]], in southern France; those expatriates provided grist for the writer's mill.<ref>{{cite web |last=Self |first=Will |author-link=Will Self |date=15 October 2014 |title=Claire Walsh obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/14/claire-walsh |access-date=22 January 2019 |website=The Guardian}}</ref>

In 1965, after the death of his wife Mary, Ballard's writing yielded the thematically-related short stories, that were published in New Worlds by Moorcock, as ''[[The Atrocity Exhibition]]'' (1970).{{cn|date=March 2025}} In 1967, the novelist [[Algis Budrys]] said that [[Brian W. Aldiss]], [[Roger Zelazny]], [[Samuel R. Delany]] and J. G. Ballard were the leading writers of New Wave Science Fiction.<ref name="budrys196710">{{Cite magazine|last=Budrys|first=Algis|date=October 1967 |title=Galaxy Bookshelf|url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v26n01_1967-10_modified#page/n175/mode/2up|magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction|pages=188–194}}</ref> In the event, ''The Atrocity Exhibition'' proved legally controversial in the U.S., because the publisher feared libel-and-slander lawsuits by the living celebrities who featured in the science fiction stories.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/walls_atrocityx_1991.html|title=1991 Science Fiction Eye magazine article on Atrocity Exhibition|website=jgballard.ca|access-date=30 June 2023|archive-date=30 June 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630221241/https://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/walls_atrocityx_1991.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In ''The Atrocity Exhibition'', the story titled "Crash!" deals with the psychosexuality of car-crash enthusiasts; in 1970, at the [[New Arts Laboratory]], Ballard sponsored an exhibition of damaged automobiles titled "Crashed Cars"; lacking the commentary of an art curator, the artwork provoked critical vitriol and layman vandalism.<ref name="atrocity">Ballard, J.G. (1993). ''The Atrocity Exhibition'' (expanded and annotated edition). {{ISBN|0-00-711686-1}}.</ref> In the story "Crash!" and in the "Crashed Cars" exhibition, Ballard presented and explored the sexual potential in a car crash, which theme he also explored in a short film made with [[Gabrielle Drake]] in 1971. Those interests produced the novel ''[[Crash (1973 novel)|Crash]]'' (1973), which features a protagonist named James Ballard, who lives in Shepperton, Surrey, England.<ref name="atrocity"/>

''Crash'' was also controversial upon publication.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Sam | last=Francis | title='Moral Pornography' and 'Total Imagination': The Pornographic in J. G. Ballard's ''Crash'' | journal=English | year=2008 | volume=57 | issue=218 | pages=146–168 | doi=10.1093/english/efn011}}</ref> In 1996, the [[Crash (1996 film)|film adaptation]] by [[David Cronenberg]] was met by a [[Tabloid journalism|tabloid]] uproar in the UK, with the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' campaigning for it to be banned.<ref>{{cite book |last=Barker |first=Martin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eph3leyfK2kC |title=The Crash Controversy: Censorship Campaigns and Film Reception |last2=Arthurs |first2=Jane |last3=Harindranath |first3=Ramaswami |publisher=Wallflower Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-903364-15-4 |access-date=15 September 2009 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref> In the years following the initial publication of ''Crash'', Ballard produced two further novels: 1974's ''[[Concrete Island]]'', about a man stranded in the traffic-divider island of a high-speed motorway,<ref name="ballardian">{{cite web|last=Sellars|first=Simon|title=Concrete Island (1974)|url=http://www.ballardian.com/biblio-concrete-island|website=Ballardian|access-date=7 March 2016|date=16 September 2006|archive-date=29 October 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061029172648/http://www.ballardian.com/biblio-concrete-island/|url-status=dead}}</ref> and ''[[High-Rise (novel)|High-Rise]]'', about a modern luxury high-rise apartment building's descent into tribal warfare.<ref name="curbed">{{cite web |last=Sisson |first=Patrick |date=28 September 2015 |title=New Film High-Rise Explores The Symbolism and Terror of Tower Living |url=http://www.curbed.com/2015/9/28/9916680/high-rise-film-jg-ballard |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308073004/http://www.curbed.com/2015/9/28/9916680/high-rise-film-jg-ballard |archive-date=8 March 2016 |access-date=7 March 2016 |website=Curbed}}</ref>

Ballard published several novels and short story collections throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but his breakthrough into the mainstream came with ''[[Empire of the Sun (novel)|Empire of the Sun]]'' in 1984, based on his years in Shanghai and the [[Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center|Lunghua internment camp]]. It became a best-seller,<ref>Collinson, G. "[https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/empire-of-the-sun.shtml Empire of the Sun] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040206050139/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/empire-of-the-sun.shtml |date=6 February 2004 }}". BBC Four article on the film and novel. Retrieved 25 April 2009.</ref> was shortlisted for the [[Booker Prize]] and awarded the [[Guardian First Book Award|Guardian Fiction Prize]] and [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for fiction.<ref name="jtb"/> It made Ballard known to a wider audience, although the books that followed failed to achieve the same degree of success. ''[[Empire of the Sun (film)|Empire of the Sun]]'' was filmed by [[Steven Spielberg]] in 1987, starring a young [[Christian Bale]] as Jim (Ballard). Ballard himself appears briefly in the film, and he has described the experience of seeing his childhood memories reenacted and reinterpreted as bizarre.<ref name="lookback"/><ref name="rickmcgrath"/>

Ballard continued to write until the end of his life, and also contributed occasional journalism and criticism to the British press. Of his later novels, ''[[Super-Cannes]]'' (2000) was well received,<ref>{{cite news |first=Stephen |last=Moss |title=Mad about Ballard |url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/critics/reviews/0,5917,368007,00.html |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=13 September 2000 |access-date=25 April 2009 |location=London |archive-date=5 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091005171340/http://books.guardian.co.uk/critics/reviews/0,5917,368007,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> winning the regional [[Commonwealth Writers' Prize]].<ref name="BCLit">{{cite web |title=J. G. Ballard |url=https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/j-g-ballard |website=British Council Literature |publisher=[[British Council]] |access-date=17 January 2016 |archive-date=5 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205150941/https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/j-g-ballard |url-status=live }}</ref> These later novels often marked a move away from science fiction, instead engaging with elements of a traditional [[crime novel]].<ref name="Noys">{{cite news|last=Noys|first=Benjamin|title=La libido réactionnaire?: the recent fiction of J.G. Ballard|url=http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/jgb_noys_libido_reactionnaire.html|access-date=7 March 2016|publisher=Sage Publishers|year=2007|archive-date=29 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429123105/http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/jgb_noys_libido_reactionnaire.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Ballard was offered a [[CBE]] in 2003, but refused, calling it "a [[Ruritania]]n charade that helps to prop up our top-heavy monarchy".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/dec/22/uk.books|title='It's a pantomime where tinsel takes the place of substance'|last=Branigan|first=Tania|date=22 December 2003|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=25 February 2017|issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Lea |first=Richard |last2=Adetunji |first2=Jo |name-list-style=and |date=19 April 2009 |title=Crash author JG Ballard, 'a giant on the world literary scene', dies aged 78 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/19/jg-ballard-author-dies-aged-78 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225213855/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/19/jg-ballard-author-dies-aged-78 |archive-date=25 February 2017 |access-date=25 April 2009 |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London}}</ref> In June 2006, he was diagnosed with terminal [[prostate cancer]], which [[metastasis]]ed to his spine and ribs. The last of his books published in his lifetime was the autobiography ''[[Miracles of Life]]'', written after his diagnosis.<ref>{{cite news |first=Stuart |last=Wavell |title=Dissecting bodies from the twilight zone: Stuart Wavell meets JG Ballard |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3215274.ece |newspaper=[[The Sunday Times]] |date=20 January 2008 |access-date=21 January 2008 |location=London |archive-date=17 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517020132/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3215274.ece |url-status=dead }}</ref> His final published short story, "The Dying Fall", appeared in the 1996 issue 106 of ''[[Interzone (magazine)|Interzone]]'', a British sci-fi magazine. It was later reproduced in ''[[The Guardian]]'' on 25 April 2009.<ref name="BallardDyingFall">{{Cite news |last=Ballard |first=JG |date=2009-04-24 |title=The Dying Fall by JG Ballard |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/25/dying-fall-jg-ballard |access-date=2024-07-15 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> He was buried in [[Kensal Green Cemetery]].

===Posthumous publication===
[[File:Grave of J. G. Ballard in Kensal Green Cemetery.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Ballard's grave in [[Kensal Green Cemetery]]]]
In October 2008, before his death, Ballard's literary agent, Margaret Hanbury, brought an outline for a book by Ballard with the working title ''Conversations with My Physician: The Meaning, if Any, of Life'' to the [[Frankfurt Book Fair]]. The physician in question is [[oncologist]] Professor [[Jonathan Waxman (oncologist)|Jonathan Waxman]] of [[Imperial College London]], who was treating Ballard for prostate cancer. While it was to be in part a book about cancer, and Ballard's struggle with it, it reportedly was to move on to broader themes. In April 2009 ''The Guardian'' reported that [[HarperCollins]] announced that Ballard's ''Conversations with My Physician'' could not be finished and plans to publish it were abandoned.<ref>{{cite news|first=Liz |last=Thompson |title=Ballard and the meaning of life |url=http://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215:ballard-and-the-meaning-of-life&catid=903:publishing&Itemid=79 |work=BookBrunch |date=16 October 2008 |access-date=20 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090425162341/http://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215%3Aballard-and-the-meaning-of-life&catid=903%3Apublishing&Itemid=79 |archive-date=25 April 2009 }}</ref>

In 2013, a 17-page untitled typescript listed as "Vermilion Sands short story in draft" in the [[British Library]] catalogue and edited into an 8,000-word text by Bernard Sigaud appeared in a short-lived French reissue of the collection by Éditions Tristram ({{ISBN|978-2367190068}}) under the title "Le labyrinthe Hardoon" as the first story of the cycle, tentatively dated "late 1955/early 1956" by B. Sigaud, David Pringle and Christopher J. Beckett. ''Reports From the Deep End'', an anthology of short stories inspired by J. G. Ballard (London: Titan Books, 2023, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Rick McGrath), could have included "The Hardoon Labyrinth"—the original edition by B. Sigaud enriched to about 9,400 words by D. Pringle—but opposition from the J. G. Ballard Estate terminated the project.<ref>{{cite web|author=Beckett, Chris|title=The Progress of the Text: The Papers of J. G. Ballard at the British Library|work=Electronic British Library Journal|year=2011|url=http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2011articles/article12.html|access-date=3 July 2014|archive-date=14 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914105826/http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2011articles/article12.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Horrocks, Chris, "Disinterring the Present: Science Fiction, Media Technology and the Ends of the Archive", ''Journal of Visual Culture'', 2013 Vol 12(3): 414–430</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2014articles/article1.html |title=Near Vermilion Sands: The Context and Date of Composition of an Abandoned Literary Draft by J. G. Ballard |website=Bl.uk |date=2014 |access-date=3 July 2014 |archive-date=7 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407090012/http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2014articles/article1.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=King, Daniel|title="'Again Last Night': A previously unpublished Vermilion Sands story", SF Commentary 86|date=February 2014|pages=18–20|url=http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC86L.pdf|access-date=5 April 2014|archive-date=7 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407065419/http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC86L.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Archive===
In June 2010 the British Library acquired Ballard's personal archives under the British government's [[acceptance in lieu]] scheme for [[death duties]]. The archive contains eighteen [[holograph]] manuscripts for Ballard's novels, including the 840-page manuscript for ''Empire of the Sun'', plus correspondence, notebooks, and photographs from throughout his life.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogit.realwire.com/archive-of-j-g-ballard-saved-for-the-nation|title=Archive of JG Ballard saved for the nation.|publisher=The British Library|date=10 June 2010|access-date=14 January 2013|archive-date=5 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105225409/http://blogit.realwire.com/archive-of-j-g-ballard-saved-for-the-nation|url-status=live}}</ref> In addition, two typewritten manuscripts for ''The Unlimited Dream Company'' are held at the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead%2F00305.xml&query=ballard&query-join=and |title=Manuscripts for The Unlimited Dream Company |publisher=Harry Ransom Center |access-date=14 July 2014 |archive-date=18 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218061846/http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead%2F00305.xml&query=ballard&query-join=and |url-status=dead }}</ref>