J. G. BALLARD
The Day of Creation
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road London W6 8JB 4thestate.co.uk
This edition published by Fourth Estate in 2014
First published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz 1987
Copyright © J. G. Ballard 1987
The right of J. G. Ballard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
Introduction copyright © Joshua Cohen 2014
Interview copyright © Travis Elborough 2006
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Cover by Stanley Donwood.
Overlaid image partly derived from combustion of ammonium dichromate, carried out by Dr Roy Lowry at Plymouth University; photographed by Anna Walker.
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 9780007290116
Version: 2014-09-25
From the reviews of The Day of Creation:
‘It could only have been imagined by a master of visionary realism…a country of the mind as vivid and viable as anything this extraordinary writer has ever produced’
Spectator
‘Ballard continues to prove that his imagination is unmatched by any contemporary British writer. His vision is relentless. Ballard’s acrid landscapes of a surreal and glittering Africa disturb as well as entrance. The obsessive desires of the hero, Dr Mallory, are equalled only by the compulsion Ballard’s creative genius has to write’
Glasgow Herald
‘Part spellbinding story, part fable for our time, Ballard’s novel is a vividly cinematic but nightmarish vision of a corrupted world. In a narrative filled with ironies, Ballard’s prose is honed and supple, often flowering into vivid lyricism. A mesmerizing tale by a master of the craft, one that resonates with dark implications for the future of humanity on this planet’
Publishers Weekly
Contents
Praise
Introduction by Joshua Cohen
1 The Desert Woman
2 The Gunmen
3 The Third Nile
4 The Shooting Party
5 Fame
6 The Oak and the Spring
7 The Impresario of Rubbish
8 The Creation Garden
9 The River Mallory
10 The Cascade
11 The House of Women
12 Noon
13 Piracy
14 Out of the Night and into the Dream
15 The Naming of New Things
16 The Helicopter Attack
17 Escape
18 The Green World
19 The Lanterns at Dusk
20 The Documentary Film
21 The Skirmish
22 Into the Lagoons
23 Journey Towards the Rain Planet
24 A Dream of Fair Women
25 The Wildfowlers
26 The Gardens of the Sahara
27 The Stolen Channel
28 Doctor Mal
29 The Blue Beaches
30 The Arcade Peep-Show
31 The Death of the Diana
32 The Poisoned Valley
33 The River Search
34 The Source
35 Memory and Desire
Interview with J. G. Ballard
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
by Joshua Cohen
1
‘Dreams of rivers, like scenes from a forgotten film, drift through the night, in passage between memory and desire.’
Or, better, let’s set it like a poem:
Dreams of rivers,
like scenes from a forgotten film,
drift through the night,
in passage between memory and desire.
Now