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MM: Definitely. It seems to me that fantastically imaginative
fiction tends to be lumped in with the whole
science fiction genre.
JGB: Exactly. If you look at 20th-century novels, you
can see that there’s a sort of mainstream, or what I would
call realistic or naturalistic fiction. And then there are
the imaginative writers who often tend to be mavericks.
You know Genet, Céline, Burroughs, and so on. And I
like to think of myself as a maverick. I’m certainly not
a literary man, and this is an important point. I’ve met a
great number of writers, novelists rather, English ones
in particular, whose stock of references – their sort of
instant associations that come to mind when they create
and all that – all tend to come from the world of
literature. Mine do not.
I’m interested in science and medicine, the media
landscape, and so on. My reflexes are not the reflexes
of a literary man. I’m more of a magpie pecking at any
bright pieces of foil. I’m interested in the world, not the
world of literature.
Science Fiction
MM: So you wouldn’t file your work of the past 15 or
20 years under science fiction?
JGB: No, not anymore. Some of my work was, there’s
certainly no question about that. And I’m very proud
that I was a science fiction writer. As I’ve often said,
it’s the most authentic literature of the 20th century.
BUY J.G. Ballard books online from and
Sadly enough, most science fiction is being written
by the wrong people nowadays. The constraints of
a certain kind of commercial fiction have tended to
formularize the field over the last 50 years.
MM: Speaking from my own experience, I think
many people, especially as young readers, are drawn
to the newness, inventiveness, even classic adventure
elements of science fiction, but eventually outgrow
it. As you said, you find the repetition and formula
simply bore you. Especially when you realise there’s
so much more out there. Why limit yourself? Why be
just a science fiction writer or reader?
JGB: I agree with you. That’s true. And that’s why I
myself stopped writing. People within the science fiction
world never regarded me as one of them in the first
place. They saw me as the enemy. I was the one who
wanted to subvert everything they believed. I wanted to
kill outer space stone dead. I wanted to kill the far future
and focus on inner space and the next five minutes. And
sci-fiers to this day don’t regard me as one of them. I’m
some sort of virus who got aboard and penetrated the
virtue of science fiction and began to pervert its DNA.
Rushing to Paradise
MM: Your new novel deals with obsessive themes like
fanaticism, radicalism and militant feminism, all within
the frame of the extremist wing of the environmental
movement. It’s not only eerily timely, it also strikes a
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