From J. G. Ballard, author of 'Crash' and 'Cocaine Nights' comes his extraordinary vision of an African forest that turns all in its path to crystal.

Through a 'leaking' of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees metamorphose into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses. Most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand.

But some, dazzled and strangely entranced, remain to drift through this dreamworld forest: a doctor in pursuit of his ex-mistress, an enigmatic Jesuit wielding a crystal cross and a tribe of lepers searching for Paradise.

In this tour de force of the imagination, Ballard transports the reader into one of his most unforgettable landscapes.

This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard's works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including James Lever, Ali Smith, Hari Kunzru and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.

From the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Cocaine Nights comes an acclaimed backlist title -- the extraordinary vision of an African forest that turns into crystal -- now reissued in new cover style. / J.G. Ballard has been at the forefront of modern British fiction for over three decades, achieving remarkable critical acclaim and commercial success / His work ranges from the hugely popular Empire of the Sun, based on his experiences in a Japanese POW camp, via experimental novels such as Crash, a controversial tale of sex and cars, to unnerving visions of worlds gone wrong, as in his most recent novel, Cocaine Nights, in which an idyllic retirement home in Spain hides a secret world of crime, drugs and illicit sex / First published in 1966, The Crystal World is a distinctively surreal vision of an alternate future world -- now being reissued as a Flamingo Modern Classic as part of the repackaging of Flamingo's Ballard backlist

About the Author

J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai. After internment in a civilian prison camp, his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller 'Empire of the Sun' won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His controversial novel 'Crash' was made into a film by David Cronenberg. His autobiography 'Miracles of Life' was published in 2008, and a collection of interviews with the author, 'Extreme Metaphors', was published in 2012. J. G. Ballard passed away in 2009.

Reviews

'Something magical and not to be missed' Guardian

'Beautifully rendered ... Ballard the poet in full ecstatic blast'
Anthony Burgess

'Of all the unknown regions Ballard's imagination has opened up, this crystalline forest is the most haunting' Guardian

'A haunting vision of diseased beauty ... Ballard sustains it with extraordinary intensity' Observer

'Ballard transports us once more into his own mystical, glittering and poetic universe' Sunday Telegraph

'The terrifying thing about Ballard is his logic; is this science fiction or history written ahead of its time?' Len Deighton

Book Information
ISBN 9780586024195
Author J. G. Ballard
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Flamingo
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 140g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 13mm