Graham Rae writes:

In 1951, a 20-year-old J.G. Ballard was studying medicine at Cambridge University in an odd, physician-heal-thyself way to deal with the death and decay and destruction he had witnessed during his famous Shanghai childhood. Whilst there he won a (shared) ten quid Crime Story prize in Varsity, the student paper, writing a story about “Malayan terrorism.” The scan here is from the May 1951 issue.

During the closing stages of his literary career Ballard would again write about terrorism, giving a certain circularity to his writing efforts.

With special thanks to David Pringle, JGB’s archivist, for retrieving this classic wee snippet from the Cambridge University library.

Below, the 1991 Ballard documentary, Shanghai Jim: