Author Archive
By
Dan OHara •
Mar 11th, 2009 •
Category:
Alain Robbe-Grillet, Ambit magazine, America, France, Japan, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Shanghai, WWII, William Burroughs, archival, autobiography, death of affect, drained swimming pools, film, inner space, memory, science fiction, sexual politics, surrealism, technology, television
Dan O’Hara back-translates an interview with JGB originally published in French in 1985. As the interviewers observe, Ballard was almost the subject of a French cult due to Crash. Asking why there are no car-crashes in Empire of the Sun, they reveal a very suggestive lacuna, with Ballard replying that even when one characteristic theme is absent from a work, the underlying emotion may remain the same, expressed by different means. Choice of metaphor is merely a matter of tone
By
Dan OHara •
Nov 21st, 2008 •
Category:
France, Lead Story, architecture, archival, crime, technology, urban decay
Dan O’Hara back-translates a brief interview with J.G. Ballard, originally published in French in 1975. Here, Ballard discusses the research he did into the link between criminal behaviour and urban environments, a seed of insight that would sustain his writing right up until Kingdom Come.
By
Dan OHara •
Jun 24th, 2008 •
Category:
America, Germany, archival, boredom, enviro-disaster, inner space, politics, psychopathology, religion, science fiction, speed & violence, the middle classes, war
This is the latest in Dan O’Hara’s back translations of German Ballard chats: an interview with JGB from 2005. This may well be the only time Ballard has been asked to consider the lyrics of Kanye West.
By
Dan OHara •
May 17th, 2008 •
Category:
America, Bruce Sterling, Germany, New Worlds, Philip K. Dick, WWII, William Gibson, archival, consumerism, politics, psychology, science fiction, short stories, surrealism
Dan O’Hara is back with another translation of a German Ballard interview, this time from 2007 with JGB in priapic, puckish form.
By
Dan OHara •
May 4th, 2008 •
Category:
Germany, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, archival, drugs, media landscape, politics, punk, science fiction, sexual politics, space relics, speed & violence, surrealism, technology, urban revolt
Another installment in Dan O’Hara’s re-translations of archival German Ballard interviews: a 1982 conversation conducted by Werner Fuchs and Joachim Körber.
By
Dan OHara •
Mar 23rd, 2008 •
Category:
Freud, Germany, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Shanghai, William Burroughs, archival, dystopia, film, psychology, science fiction, sexual politics, short stories, surrealism, utopia
This is the second of Dan O’Hara’s re-translations of JGB interviews originally published in German. This one dates from 1976, and in it Ballard provides comment on Russian writers and explains how film technique infiltrates and influences his own writing.
By
Dan OHara •
Mar 15th, 2008 •
Category:
Germany, WWII, archival, biology, deep time, entropy, enviro-disaster, inner space, science fiction, surrealism
Dan O’Hara has re-translated three interviews with JGB, originally published in German in the 60s, in which Ballard provides absorbing insight into his enviro-disaster trilogy: The Drowned World, The Drought and The Crystal World.
By
Dan OHara •
Jan 9th, 2008 •
Category:
Chris Marker, David Cronenberg, Germany, Steven Spielberg, WWII, architecture, dystopia, entropy, fascism, film, gated communities, interviews, urban decay, urban revolt, urban ruins, utopia
Dan O’Hara interviews the creators of Hochhaus, a German mixed-media radio play based on High-Rise. Transposing the novel to Berlin in 2013, it references Nazism, notably Speer’s social engineering through architecture, on its way to exploring Ballard’s relevance to speculative models of German life.
