my favourite writer, J.G. Ballard is one of the most influential avant garde writers of our time. His work has had a profound influence on both SF and experimental modern and post-modern, new wave fiction. New Wave science-fiction dealt less with the hardware of science-fiction – spaceships, aliens, robots, other worlds etc – than it did with social, psychological and political extrapolations, about the human reactions to outward futurism.
He is popularly known as the author of “Empire of the Sun.” Some of his science fiction novels include
* Vermilion Sands (1971)
* The Drowned World (1962)
* The Crystal World (1966) and
* The Drought (1964), and a number of short story collections.
His more controversial (only marginally SF) works include The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) and Crash (1973).
from Wikipedia:
‘‘James Graham Ballard (born 15 November 1930 in Shanghai) is a British writer. He was a prominent member of the New Wave in science fiction. His best known books are the controversial Crash, and the autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, both of which have been adapted to film.
The adjective “Ballardian”, defined as “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard’s novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments”, has been included in the Collins English Dictionary.’’