Rushing To Paradise

Description:
J.G. Ballard -- author of 'Crash' and 'Empire of the Sun' -- explores the dangers of extremism in ecology and feminism in this highly acclaimed modern fable. Veteran campaigner Dr Barbara Rafferty's obsessive crusade to save the albatross on the Pacific atoll of Saint-Esprit suddenly gains international support when millions of TV viewers witness the shooting of her young acolyte Neil Dempsey on a foolhardy rescue mission. The coverage that results allows Dr Barbara to turn the deserted island into a sanctuary. It becomes a remote paradise home for Neil, an odd team of eco-enthusiasts and idealists and a growing collection of the world's endangered species, sent there to find protection from extinction. However, as Dr Barbara isolates the residents more and more from the world outside it becomes clear that all on the island is not right. As the men begin to sicken while the women flourish, Neil is forced to question why he remains healthy, and will this change when a new man arrives? Brilliantly unsettling in classic 'Ballardian' style, this is a novel in which all expectations are upset and all roles reversed.

Review:
'Ballard is a magician of the contemporary scene and a literary saboteur. 'Rushing to Paradise' is a Wellsian drama of extremity and isolation!a parable about the ratlike behaviour of marooned human beings. No one else writes with such enchanted clarity or strange power.' Guardian 'Pure Ballard. I read it with rapt fascination!wonderful.' William Boyd 'Robinson Crusoe in reverse. Teasing and sardonic!Ballard at his best.' Independent on Sunday Praise for J.G.Ballard: 'There are those (and I am among them) who would back Ballard as Britain's number one living novelist' John Sutherland, Sunday Times 'One of the brightest stars in post-war fiction' Kingsley Amis 'One of the few genuine surrealists this country has produced, the possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination' Guardian 'Ballard has issued a series of bulletins on the modern world of almost unerring prescience. Other writers describe; Ballard anticipates' Will Self

Author Biography:
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 most recent novel is 'Kingdom Come', published in 2006, and his autobiography 'Miracles of Life' is published in 2008.