empire of the sun – Readiscovery

World War II in books and films

Here's September 1 one day late: September 1, 1939, written by WH Auden in New York when Germany invaded Poland, starting the Second World War. The war produced epic novels and movies. Casablanca was made in 1942, the year America joined the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. […]

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Ballard’s terrible Shanghai in Empire Of The Sun

The Japanese committed terrible atrocities in the Second World War, as we all know, but they had no monopoly on cruelty. One has only to read JG Ballard's Empire Of The Sun to see what a terrible city Shanghai was when it fell to the Japanese. I was going through […]

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes