Empire of the Sun, J. G. Ballard
Empire of the Sun, J. G. Ballard
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Empire of the Sun

Author: J. G. Ballard

Narrator: Jeremy Irons

Abridged: 3 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/15/1987


Synopsis

The classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg’s film, tells of a young boy’s struggle to survive World War II in China.

Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him.

Shanghai, 1941—a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.

Ballard’s enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

About J. G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard (1930–2009) was the author of numerous books, including Concrete IslandThe Kindness of Women, and Crash. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Baba on June 16, 2022

Taking into consideration of some of his own wartime experiences, Ballard tells the story of privileged Jamie (“Jim”) Graham, a Brit living in Shanghai when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour in the Second World War. The book takes a look at the tragedy and ultimate sickness of armed conflict through t......more

Goodreads review by Lena on June 17, 2021

Hundreds of book were written about WWII, every one describing horrors of war and human tragedies in its own way. And yet, no matter how many of them I've read, it shocks me every time. And this heartbreaking story of a prisoner camp survivor was emotionally devastating. Author managed to show how s......more

Goodreads review by Manny on January 13, 2010

A few days ago, I learned a new Japanese word. Nijuuhibakusha means literally "twice radiation-sick individual", and refers to the few people who, through staggering bad luck, managed to be present both at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then at Nagasaki three days later. The article I read was an......more

Goodreads review by Brett on April 27, 2023

This was an enjoyable read in my opinion. The plot followed the life of Jim, a young British boy living in the opening outbreak of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai and eastern China during World War II. Jim was the son of a British diplomat living in a foreign settlement sector co-oping with the Ch......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on August 02, 2023

Re-Read 8/2/23 I don't know what it is about this novel that lets me positively want to re-read it. On the surface, it's utterly tragic and devastating. Ballard himself experienced the Japanese war camp in Shanghai for the entire span of WWII. Starvation and desperate moves to survive and the breatht......more