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J G Ballard sent this postcard of Mae West, a painting by Salvador Dalí, to Angela Carter on 4 December 1991. He was writing to congratulate her on The Holy Family Album and the publication of Wise Children, which would be her last novel. Close friends, Ballard and Carter had a mutual interest in Surrealist art and poetry.
Ballard’s main reason for writing was to praise Carter’s ‘demolition job on Our Saviour’ – the TV documentary, The Holy Family Album, written and narrated by Carter. It aired in December 1991 on Channel 4. The controversial programme deconstructed visual images of Christ using Freudian analysis and irreverent montages of image, music and voiceover.
Ballard serves Carter perhaps the highest compliment one could pay to a devotee of Surrealism: ‘Breton + Ernst would have been proud of you’.
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