 Although Ballard published several novels and short story collections throughout the seventies and eighties, his breakthrough into the mainstream came only with "Empire of the Sun" in 1984, based on his years in Shanghai and the Lunghua internment camp.It became a best-seller, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.It made Ballard known to a wider audience, although the books that followed failed to achieve the same degree of success.