Hello America

A terrifying vision of the future from one of the twentieth century’s most renowned writers – J. G. Ballard, author of ‘Empire of the Sun’ and ‘Crash’.

Following the energy crisis of the late twentieth-century America has been abandoned. Now, a century later, an expedition from Europe returns to the deserted continent. But America is unrecognisable – the Bering Strait has been dammed and the whole continent has become a desert, populated by isolated natives and the bizarre remnants of a disintegrated culture.

The expedition sets off from Manhattan on a cross-continent journey, through Holiday Inns and abandoned theme parks. They will uncover a shocking new power in the heart of Las Vegas in this unique vision of our world transformed.

This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ned Beauman, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.

Reviews

‘Mordant and inventive, Ballard at his best’ New Statesman

‘It is futile to have expectations of Ballard: he will inevitably subvert them. All we know for certain is that the novels he will write could not be written, could not even be guessed at, by anyone else’ Martin Amis, Observer

‘Enter Mr Ballard’s worlds and you become entranced in a séance difficult to break out of, so powerful is his method’ The Times

‘This is a very clever fiction, and – yes – another amazing improvisation on Ballard's basic theme’ Guardian

About the author

J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai. After internment in a civilian prison camp, his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His controversial novel Crash was made into a film by David Cronenberg. His autobiography Miracles of Life was published in 2008, and a collection of interviews with the author, Extreme Metaphors, was published in 2012. J.G. Ballard passed away in 2009.