Thomas Ligotti | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1953-07-09)July 9, 1953 (age 72) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | Wayne State University |
| Period | 1981–present |
| Genre | Horror fiction,weird fiction,dark fantasy |
Thomas Ligotti (born July 9, 1953) is an Americanhorror author, layphilosopher, and writer. His writings are rooted in severalliterary genres – most prominentlyweird fiction – and have been described by critics as works of philosophical horror, often formed into short stories and novellas in the tradition ofgothic fiction.[1] The worldview espoused by Ligotti in his fiction and non-fiction has been described aspessimistic andnihilistic.[1][2]The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."[3]
Ligotti started his professional writing career in the early 1980s withshort stories published in Americansmall press magazines. He was contributing editor toGrimoire from 1982 to 1985.[4] In 2015, Ligotti's first two collections,Songs of a Dead Dreamer andGrimscribe: His Lives and Works, were republished in one volume byPenguin Classics asSongs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe.[5] Michael Calia ofThe Wall Street Journal wrote of the reprint that "Horror writer Thomas Ligotti is about to enter the American literary canon. Penguin Classics published a volume of Mr. Ligotti’s short stories, making him one of 10 living writers, includingThomas Pynchon andDon DeLillo, among the hundreds the imprint has published in the U.S."[6] Ligotti's work received high praise following the publication from the likes ofThe New York Times Book Review,[7] theLos Angeles Review of Books,[8]The Washington Post,[9] andThe New Yorker.[10]Terrence Rafferty contrasts Ligotti withStephen King, observing, "King, the great entertainer, needs the story as the comedian needs the joke, and when he can’t quite deliver it he dies (in the comedian’s sense). King is a master of horror, though. When inspiration fails, he has the technique to fake it. Thomas Ligotti is a master of a different order, practically a different species. He probably couldn’t fake it if he tried, and he never tries. He writes like horror incarnate."[7]
Ligotti collaborated with the musical groupCurrent 93 on the albumsIn a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land (1997, reissued 2002),I Have a Special Plan for This World (2000),This Degenerate Little Town (2001) andThe Unholy City(2003), all released onDavid Tibet'sDurtro label. Tibet has also published several limited editions of Ligotti's books on Durtro Press. Additionally, Ligotti played guitar onCurrent 93's contribution to the compilation albumFoxtrot, whose proceeds went to the treatment of musicianJohn Balance's alcoholism.[11]
He has citedThomas Bernhard,William S. Burroughs,Emil Cioran,Vladimir Nabokov,Edgar Allan Poe,Giacomo Leopardi,Samuel Beckett,Franz Kafka, andBruno Schulz as being among his favorite writers.H. P. Lovecraft is also an important touchstone for Ligotti: a few stories, "The Sect of the Idiot" in particular, make explicit reference to Lovecraft'sCthulhu Mythos, and one, "The Last Feast of Harlequin", was dedicated to Lovecraft. Also among his avowed influences areAlgernon Blackwood,M. R. James, andArthur Machen, allfin de siècle horror authors known for their subtlety and implications of the cosmic and supernatural in their stories.[1] He has also invoked the influence of philosophers such asArthur Schopenhauer andPeter Wessel Zapffe.[1]
Ligotti has suffered fromchronic anxiety andanhedonia for much of his life; these have been prominent themes in his work.[1] Ligotti avoids theexplicit violence common in some recent horror fiction, preferring to establish a disquieting, pessimistic atmosphere through the use of subtlety and repetition. Ligotti has stated he prefers short stories to longer forms, both as a reader and as a writer,[1] though he has written anovella,My Work Is Not Yet Done (2002)[12]
Ligotti's ancestry is three-quartersSicilian, one-quarter Polish, a genetic combination he likes to think "contributed to the bizarre quality of my imagination and to what has been called its 'universality'." He says that his Polish grandmother's stories, though not horrific, "put me in touch with an older and stranger world than I would otherwise have known and that emerged when I started writing stories so many years later".[13]
Ligotti attendedMacomb County Community College between 1971 and 1973 and graduated fromWayne State University in 1978.[14] For 23 years Ligotti worked as an Associate Editor at Gale Research (now theGale Group), a publishing company that produces compilations of literary (and other) research. In the summer of 2001, Ligotti quit his job at the Gale Group and moved to south Florida. Politically, he identifies as asocialist.[15][16]
He has been influenced by the "first-person voice in whichNabokov wrote" and the "densely metaphorical style ofBruno Schulz".[17]
In 2003,Wildside Press publishedThe Thomas Ligotti Reader: Essays and Explorations, a collection of essays about Ligotti's work edited byDarrell Schweitzer.
AuthorJeff VanderMeer has penned numerous pieces praising Ligotti's writing, including the introduction to thePenguin Classics edition ofSongs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe.[18][19][20]
In 2014, theHBO television seriesTrue Detective attracted attention from some of Ligotti's fans because of the resemblance of the pessimistic,antinatalist philosophy espoused in the first few episodes by the character ofRust Cohle (played byMatthew McConaughey) and Ligotti's own philosophical pessimism and antinatalism, especially as expressed inThe Conspiracy Against the Human Race. After accusations that dialogue from Cohle's character inTrue Detective were lifted fromThe Conspiracy Against the Human Race,[21][22] the series' writer,Nic Pizzolatto, confirmed inThe Wall Street Journal[23][24][25] that Ligotti, along with several other writers and texts in the weird supernatural horror genre, had indeed influenced him. Pizzolatto said he foundThe Conspiracy Against the Human Race to be "incredibly powerful writing".[25] On the topic ofhard-boiled detectives, he asked: "What could be more hardboiled than the worldview of Ligotti or [Emil] Cioran?"[25]
The writing of Ligotti andEugene Thacker is cited as an influence on the 2021 albumThe Nightmare of Being by the Gothenburg melodic death metal bandAt the Gates.[26]
Collections
Novella
Non-fiction
Poetry
Graphic novels
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