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BALLARD-PRINCE INTERVIEW

Extra-ordinary*


Time of Conversation: 1967

J.G. Ballard: You were born in the Panama Canal Zone?

Richard Prince: Yes. In 1949.

Ballard: Panaman? Panamerican?

Prince: Yes. Something like that? I left with my mother and sister after my
father had been detentioned for presumably stockpiling arms and munitions for
what I imagined was the 19th nervous breakdown of Cuba. This was in 1956.
He was later released, moved to Hawaii and from there has been moving to and
from the city of Saigon (what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City).

Ballard: Aren't children born in the Canal Zone called Zonians?

Prince: Yes. The Canal Zone has represented for some time the concept of
unlimited possibility.

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