The Day of Creation

The Day of Creation

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author J. G. Ballard
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Novel
Publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd
Publication date
1987
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 254 pp
ISBN 0-575-04152-8
OCLC 17918501
823/.914 19
LC Class PR6052.A46 D38 1987
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The Day of Creation is a 1987 novel by J. G. Ballard.

Plot summary

The main character of the novel is the World Health Organization doctor John Mallory who, six months after his arrival in Central Africa, finds that intense guerilla activity has left him without patients. He devotes himself, instead, to the task of bringing water to the region, with dreams of setting the Sahara in flower. When he accidentally manages to achieve his task by creating a river,[1] he becomes prey of an increasingly delirious spiral of fantasies, starting to identify himself with the new river that he has dubbed "Mallory". Obsessed, he decides to go up the river in order to "kill" its source, together with a teenaged African girl, whom he considers a sort of spirit of the waters, and other characters including a half-blind British documentary filmmaker and two ruthless local chieftains trying to take advantage of the new prosperity brought by the water.

References

External links