The Day of Creation

The Day of Creation
J. G. Ballard

‘Classic Ballard. Mesmerising. No one writes with such haunting impact’ William BoydIn parched, war-torn central Africa, Dr Mallory watches his clinic fail and dreams of discovering a third Nile to make the Sahara bloom. During his search for water, an ancient tree stump is uprooted by a bulldozer and water wells up, spreading until it becomes an enormous river. With the once arid land now abounding in birds and beasts, the obsessed Mallory forges up-river in an old car ferry, clashing with hostile factions as he tries to find the source of his own creation.

J. G. BALLARD

The Day of Creation

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road London W6 8JB 4thestate.co.uk (http://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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins eBooks.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this e-book has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

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

Praise (#u5f39b0b7-882f-5752-a843-9ac082793201)

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

Title Page (#u3e5055e0-9c6a-56b2-a028-192fe6a2310f)

Copyright (#ud7a6d98d-e22b-508e-96ce-5f3bbdaa1352)

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