This book is about J. G. Ballard. This book is also about death, love and time travel.

‘The best account yet of the life of one of the great English-language writers of the last century.’ – The New World

‘A very timely book’ – Sunday Times

This book is about J. G. Ballard. This book is also about death, love and time travel.

J. G. Ballard possessed one of the most astonishing imaginations of our age, and he had an intense and turbulent history– an experience famously fictionalised in Empire of the Sun. Ballard’s novels are among the finest and most unusual fiction that has ever been published. Whether in the hyper-surrealism of High-Rise or the erotic violence of Crash, he upended the morality and reality of our world.

As a young writer, it had been Ballard’s stories, most of all, that had helped cement Christopher Priest’s passion for science fiction. He set out to write a biography that would make people understand what he already knew: that
J. G. Ballard wasn’t just a cult writer — he was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

In 2024, Christopher died. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the same disease that killed J. G. Ballard — the man whose biography he’d spent his last months working on.

When Nina and Christopher first met, they bonded over their love for Ballard’s writing. When it became clear that Christopher would not have time to finish this biography, Nina promised him that she would complete it. If the book began as a tribute from Priest to Ballard, it is now also a love story written by Nina for Christopher. With access to never-before-seen material, The Illuminated Man explores the history and themes of Ballard’s life and – with Ballardian strangeness – celebrates and mourns for those that are gone.

"A very timely book, and one that I hope will introduce new readers to a writer Priest rightly calls one of the greatest of the 20th century." - The Sunday Times

"The best account yet of the life of one of the great English-language writers of the last century… Exemplary in detail and analysis, The Illuminated Mind is a page-turning portrait of an author whose work feels more bracingly relevant than ever." - The New World

"A brave and moving book." - Guardian

"The Illuminated Man is a miracle of a book, transcending categories and boundaries. It’s both a richly insightful and keenly sympathetic biography of a genius, and one of the most powerful accounts of love, and of the passing of a life, that I have ever read. Together, Nina Allan and Christopher Priest take us to extraordinary places, ranging from the heart of Ballard’s world and mythos to the limits of life itself. It’s an invigorating read, richly stimulating and almost unbearably moving. More than anything, it’s a celebration of the world-transforming power of literature, of the shining gift of the word and the happiness it brings, amid all life’s mysteries. Forged through tragedy and written in devotion, it is a singular work, and simply unforgettable." - Martin MacInnes, author of Infinite Ground

"A deft and necessary negotiation through the lives and masks of a writer fated to become an adjective. Twinned narratives intertwine as biographical pursuit invades and informs the complex journey of the pursuers. Legends of the master myth-maker are interrogated, confirmed and sometimes challenged. An engaging and frequently moving tribute to a writer honouring his self-imposed task to the last breath." - Iain Sinclair

"The Illuminated Man does the job. It succeeds as a tribute to Ballard and to the abiding power of literature and ideas. It is also a raw response to the inevitability of dissolution and loss, putting death at the centre, with its strangeness and banalities, and perhaps that’s Ballardian too." - Times Literary Supplement