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The Atrocity Exhibition

J G Ballard author Hari Kunzru editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers

Published:21st May '01

Should be back in stock very soon

The Atrocity Exhibition cover

First published in 1970 and widely regarded as a prophetic masterpiece, this is a groundbreaking experimental novel by the acclaimed author of Crash and Super-Cannes, who has supplied explanatory notes for this new edition. / This revised edition features a preface by William Burroughs and extensive annotations by the author, which unlock many of the mysteries of one of the most enigmatic and prophetic works of fiction of the late 20th century / First publication of the revised edition as a Perennial paperback. / Ballard's most experimental work, it also contains in distilled form many of the themes and obsessions that run through his later novels and, in particular, contains the germ of the controversial Crash

A prophetic and experimental masterpiece by J. G. Ballard, the acclaimed author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Super-Cannes’, featuring an introduction by Hari Kunzru.

A prophetic and experimental masterpiece by J. G. Ballard, the acclaimed author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Super-Cannes’, featuring an introduction by Hari Kunzru.

The human organism is an atrocity exhibition at which he is an unwilling spectator …

As the protagonist spirals into the depths of a nervous breakdown, his dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, astronauts and car-crash victims. A kaleidoscopic scrapbook of mass culture, his mind fixates on the consumerism of the modern world – a hallucinatory obsession with celebrity, media, sex and violence. With the media infiltrating every corner of our psyche, have the lines blurred between fiction and reality?

‘Brilliant and unnerving … Ballard is a writer with talent to burn’ The Times

‘These stories – “condensed novels”, Ballard has called them – are a high-water mark in English experimental fiction’ New York Times

‘A powerful book … Phrase and image are constantly disturbing and stimulating’ Sunday Telegraph

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

ISBN: 9780007116867

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 16mm

Weight: 200g

208 pages

Annotated edition