How Did a Censored Writer from the 1970s Predict the Future with Such Uncanny Accuracy?
50 years ago, J.G. Ballard anticipated everything from Instagram to Netflix binging
J.G. Ballard got his first taste of fame—or infamy, some might suggest—as author of the strangest and most shocking science fiction novels of the New Wave movement. Few books are more unsettling than his novel Crash (1973), except perhaps his The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which was so transgressive that US publisher Doubleday, after consulting its lawyers, decided to cancel its release and destroy all copies.
One publishing house, after evaluating the book for possible publication, preserved this pithy verdict in the reader’s report: “This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish!”
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