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Empire of the Sun
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Narrated by:
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Steven Pacey
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By:
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J. G. Ballard
About this listen
Winner of the Guardian fiction prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
From the master of dystopia, comes his heartrending story of a British boy’s four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Based on J. G. Ballard’s own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy’s life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai - a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint. Rooted as it is in the author’s own disturbing experience of war in our time, it is one of a handful of novels by which the 20th century will be not only remembered but judged.
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 best seller, 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 memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J. G. Ballard died in 2009.
©1984 J. G. Ballard (P)2014 Audible StudiosCritic reviews
“A remarkable journey into the mind of a growing boy … horror and humanity are blended into a unique and unforgettable fiction” ( Sunday Times)
“Remarkable … form, content and style fuse with complete success … one of the great war novels of the 20th century” (William Boyd)
“Gripping and remarkable … I have never read a novel which gave me a stronger sense of the blind helplessness of war … unforgettable” ( Observer)
“A brilliant fusion of history, autobiography and imaginative speculation. An incredible literary achievement and almost intolerably moving” (Anthony Burgess)
“An immensely powerful novel – in a class of its own for sheer imaginative force.” ( Daily Telegraph)
“Gripping and remarkable … I have never read a novel which gave me a stronger sense of the blind helplessness of war … unforgettable.” ( Observer)
“Ranks with the greatest British writing on the Second World War.” ( The Times)
What listeners say about Empire of the Sun
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-09-20
Bloody but brilliant.
A coming of age story like no other - one of endurance and grisly adventure but also of innocence.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Neil P.
- 14-05-21
An experience of war seen through the eyes of a child
My favourite book narrated superbly by Steven Pacey. It’s so descriptive that you could believe you were there
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- LC
- 05-09-18
Vivid and horrific
Gives a convincing and horrific experience of trying to survive in wartime Shanghai through the Japanese occupation, surrounded by death and starvation.
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- Whoopsboy
- 22-12-24
An unwanted adventure.
I really enjoyed this book. there is a form of the same name based on the book but I think that the book goes into a lot more depth. I would recommend this book and I think anybody from Teen upwards would enjoy it. Highly recommended.
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- redfeend
- 16-04-15
Heart rending
I was not sure what to expect from this book. I have read other Jg Ballard novels and enjoyed them, but this is different, being based on his own experience during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in WW2. The narration is excellent, bringing life and individuality to each of the characters and expressing both Jim's youthful naivety and the protracted suffering the internees endured. Towards the end of the book I was often in tears as Jim fought to survive and make sense of his world. The reader expertly conveys Jim's fragile mental state after years of depravation and seeing so many people die. The poignant ending sees Jim return to his childhood home in the city and then embark on a journey into an uncertain future, I thoroughly recommend this book.
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18 people found this helpful
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- Luna43
- 10-02-22
Empire of the Sun
Always loved the film, but wanted to listen to the book for more detail, and I wasn't disappointed. Thoroughly enjoyed
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- Julie
- 18-10-16
Empire of the sun
This was a very long book it took me 3 weeks as I am struggling to balance time with my job at lidls
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-06-22
Good listen
Good original story of a teenage boy's experience of surviving war, having been separated from his parents
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- Sigrin
- 04-05-17
Japanese prisoner of war through a child's eyes
I have not seen the film, but highly recommend the book/ audible.
WW2 books usually centre around Europe and we can often forget about VJ Day and what surrounded and lead to it.
The book is a grim, no messing tale of young Jim and his parents living in Shangai prior to the war breaking out. The outbreak of war and his subsequent internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. It focuses on his time there, the horrors of daily life and also the small things that kept them going. With VJ Day sees Jim returning to shanghai, reuniting with his parents.
The last three hours are very sad and graphic in Jims dwindling mental state but intrinsic to this great story.
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4 people found this helpful
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- B. A. Harding
- 21-09-20
A great story.. but too long and in need of a good edit.
Another name should be the 9 lives of J G Ballard. As our hero escapes death so many times..
The author had some important insight about the history of 20th century China..and it is his story , he was a boy in camp.. but it repeated
itself again and again.. that was a great pity.. the film is better thank the book.
I do have a personal interest.. my grandmother and aunt were in a camp in northern Shanghai for almost 4 years..while my father was in camp in Hong Kong.. and many of the comments about the conditions were the same as Ballard. The Japanese did not punish the Jews.. and Ballard does say that the Japanese stopped a group of nazis enter the Jewish quarter to bet them up.. my father said that in camp that they asked for a room for Friday night prayers.. and were given a room for Friday night. Jim like my father received kindness from the Japanese guards..
So these remarkable actions were real, that the average Japanese soldier was a family man and a human man. Shanghai was a terrible city.. as a child I would hear stories of Shanghai.. and Ballard certainly says this.. The film did the editing.. although the film did change things a bit .. a very interesting book that gives another view point.. and the suffering of the Chinese people.
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