Posthumous notes on a spec-fic trailblazer: JG Ballard

Whether you consider JG Ballard a magical realist depends a great deal on how you define MR. I know some writers who insist he's a magical realist, while others will say he's more of a social sci fi writer or a speculative fiction author.



Regardless, much of the content of his work borrows from the bizarre inequities of the real world. Certainly, his view was dystopic but he wasn't, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, without hope at all. Like Gabo, Ballard understood how the structure of reality in a novel can spurn the expectations of the status quo and that, by writing outside the formal limitations of Realism, a writer might, in fact, tell the truth more transparently.




Here's a great analysis of and tribute to Ballard.