Empire of the Sun - J G Ballard

First published in 1984, Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize amongst others and has been hailed as a modern literary classic. It was made into a major motion picture in 1987 with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Christian Bale, John Malkovich and Miranda Richardson. Set in China as the Japanese invade post Pearl Harbour, it is based on JG Ballard's own childhood experiences as an intern of a Japanese camp outside Shanghai during the Second World War. The book follows twelve-year-old Jim, who lives a privileged life in pre-war Shanghai, set amongst the melting pot of nationalities in the International ...  Read the complete review

Sometimes, re-reading a favourite book, one suddenly makes a new connection, gains a new insight and this will add another piece to the jigsaw in one's mind. A little bit more of the overall pattern, the big picture slips into place. What one thinks, how one sees things, becomes just a little clearer. Do you know what I mean? When it happens to me, it makes me smile. So it was when I finished re-reading Empire of the Sun. As I reached the final page, I was thinking of the similarities between Ballard's mesmerising, autobiographical novel of the Second World War and Boy, the ...  Read the complete review

Ballard?s tale of a young boy held in a Japanese internment camp after the fall of Shanghai during the Second World War obviously draws heavily from his own experiences. Ballard himself was held in Lunghua Camp from 1942-1945 and while reading the book it is brought home to the reader that similar events really did occur to a young boy and the horrors that are observed happened to many real people during the War, making the book a sobering read. Jim lives with his parents in an up market area of Shanghai. When Japan make their attack on Pearl Harbour Jim and the rest of Shanghai find themselves plunged into the war. Jim is separated from his parents and ends ...  Read the complete review

There are books in this world that are read, and the reader feels as if they’ve read it somewhere before. You know the kind I mean. The one’s that seem so familiar that you need to double-check the blurb on the back of the cover to make sure. This doesn’t make a book bad, but it doesn’t really make it original. I picked up Empire of the Sun and began to read…and read…and read…. When I’d emerged from my fantasy world, having lived and felt the plot within the novel, I pondered for a while. I felt enlightened and somehow a little wiser than I was before I’d read the novel, because I’d ...  Read the complete review

Empire of the Sun is one of JG Ballard's more accessible books. Semi autobiographical, it tells the story of a young boy, Jim, and his experiences in Shanghai during World War Two. Ballard was the same age as Jim and was also interred for the duration of the war. How many of the events in the book are taken directly from his experience is not entirely clear but the fact that he is informed by first hand experience gives the book a chilling authenticity. The book is written entirely from the boy's point of view; all events and situations are described in Jim's own words and grounded in his own experience. Ballard makes no attempt to interject any adult ...  Read the complete review