OBIT

Writer J.G. Ballard Dies

Dystopian author wrote Empire of the Sun.

Writer J.G. Ballard has his own adjective, Ballardian, which means "resembling or suggestive" of the modern dystopias that appeared in his books. The Times of London reports that the famed author has died at age 78 after a long battle with cancer. His best known book, Empire of the Sun, was a fictionalized account of his childhood in a Japanese internment camp in China during World War II. Steven Spielberg made a film out of it in 1987. David Cronenberg also adapted his novel Crash. A writer ahead of his time, Ballard's other novels predicted the melting of the ice caps, terrorism against tourists, and the alienation of a technology-obsessed society.