With a new introduction by M. John Harrison and a striking new cover design from the artist Stanley Donwood, this acclaimed cult novel sees human existence threatened by devastating climate change.

Water. Man's most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of despair.

Remarkable for its prescience and the originality of its vision, The Drought is a work of major importance from the early career of one of Britain's most acclaimed novelists.

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

The world is threatened by dramatic climate change in this highly acclaimed and influential novel, one of the most important early works by the bestselling author of 'Cocaine Nights' and 'Super-Cannes'. / A masterpiece from the early career of the author widely acclaimed as Britain's No 1 living novelist -- now reissued in a new cover style as part of the repackaging of the Flamingo Ballard backlist. / His critically acclaimed recent novels, COCAINE NIGHTS and SUPER-CANNES, have won J.G. Ballard a whole new readership and taken him back to the top of bestseller lists. / Typical of the early phase of his career, THE DROUGHT is one of his most powerful and memorable depictions of a world gone wrong, its exploration of a cataclysmic future shared by THE DROWNED WORLD (1962) and THE CRYSTAL WORLD (1965)

About the Author

J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. He published his first novel, The Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 bestseller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J.G. Ballard died in 2009.

Reviews

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

'More intelligent and more strange than almost any other novel' Brian Aldiss

'At a time when we live with constant warnings of a world destroyed by global warming, it is easy to forget that writers such as Ballard were exploring the fear of global blight nearly forty years ago' The Times

'It is weird; it is grotesque; it is magnificently Gothic' Sunday Times

'A strange and wonderful book' Guardian

Book Information
ISBN 9780586089965
Author J. G. Ballard
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Flamingo
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 200g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 16mm