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Empire Of The Sun By J. G. Gilman

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Empire of the sun was written by a man named J. G. Ballard. This novel is an personal account of his time in Shanghai and in the Lunghua prison camp during World War II. This book reveals much about the author (J.G. Ballard) through the eyes of a fictional character Jim. Up until 1984, J. G. Ballard had made his reputation writing only science fiction books and short stories, some of them being, “The Drowned World” (1962), “Crash” (1973), “The Unlimited Dream Company” (1979) as well as a few others. Empire of the Sun is his first major novel outside the norm. The novel opens on the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, in Shanghai 's International Settlement. Eleven-year-old Jamie—or Jim as he prefers to be called—his family …show more content…

As he roams the city, Jim meets two American sailors Frank and Basie. Not after long the three of them are captured by the Japanese and Basie and Jim are sent to a detention center just inside the city . When they arrive at the center, Jim becomes very ill. With help Basie, he gets enough food to keep himself alive. After a few weeks at the detention center Jim and Basie are taken outside the city to the prison camp called Lunghua. He spends three years in this camp and we see that he faces many challenges, such as hunger, sickness, and death all around him. Jim spends his time at the camp running around doing things for the prisoners and guards to gain food, and gifts, like a shiny pair of golf shoes he got from one of the prisoners. During the evenings he played chess and did homework assigned by a prisoner, Dr. Ransome. At the camp there were constantly air raids from the Americans around the camp, and as time went on they became more frequent. At the end of his three years air strikes became a daily event until the August of1945, the Japanese evacuate the camp to the Olympic Stadium outside Shanghai. Jim has no choice but to leave with the rest of the prisoners even though he is afraid of his safety outside the camp. While on the journey from the, many of the prisoners die. At one point during this journey Jim try’s to give up and just die, but Mr. Maxted changes his mind and pushes him further. Mr. Maxted unfortunately dies after they

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