The Kindness of Women is a 1991 novel by British author J. G. Ballard, a sequel to his 1984 novel Empire of the Sun. The Kindness of Women drew on the author's boyhood in Shanghai during World War II, presenting a lightly fictionalized treatment of Ballard's life from Shanghai through to adulthood in England, culminating with an account of the making of Steven Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun. A non-fiction account of the same experiences can be found in Ballard's autobiography, Miracles of Life. It was first published in the UK by HarperCollins and in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Source: Wikipedia (en)