Thomas Ligotti
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Thomas Ligotti (born July 9, 1953, in Detroit, Michigan) is a writer of horror stories. He attended Macomb County Community College between 1971 and 1973 and graduated from Wayne State University in 1977.
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Overview
Often favorably compared to Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka and H.P. Lovecraft, Ligotti began his publishing career in the early 1980s with a number of short stories published in various American small press magazines.
His unique and affecting tales gathered a small following. Ligotti's relative anonymity and reclusiveness led to speculation about his identity: Was Ligotti a pseudonym used by a prominent literary writer? Were his stories in fact collaborations of multiple authors? In an introduction to his collection The Nightmare Factory, Poppy Z. Brite mentioned these notions, with a rhetorical question: "Are you out there, Thomas Ligotti?"
In recent years, Ligotti has conducted interviews and disclosed some details of his background. For twenty-three years Ligotti worked as an Associate Editor at Gale Research (now the Gale 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.
Ligotti descibes his worldview as profoundly nihilistic, and has stated he has suffered from anxiety for much of his life; these have been prominent themes in his work.
Ligotti generally avoids the explicit violence common in some recent horror fiction, preferring to establish an intensely disquieting, pessimistic atmosphere through the use of subtlety and repetition. He has cited Vladimir Nabakov, Thomas Bernhard, Edgar Allan Poe, Bruno Schulz, and William S. Burroughs among his favorite writers. There are similarities between some of Ligotti's work and the subtly disturbing stories of Robert Aickman, as well. H.P. Lovecraft is also an important touchstone for Ligotti: At least one story makes explicit reference to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and another, "The Last Feast of the Harlequin", was dedicated to Lovecraft.
Ligotti has explored Metafictional notions in several stories: "Notes on the Writing of Horror" and "Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror." Both begin as advice for prospective writers of horror fiction, but gradually become uniquely Ligottian exercises in quietly disturbing fiction.
Ligotti has stated he prefers short stories to longer forms, both as a reader and writer, though he has recently written a novella, My Work Is Not Yet Done.
Ligotti has collaborated with the musical group Current 93 on several albums: In A Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land, This Degenerate Little Town, and I Have A Special Plan For This World.
Reviews
Critical opinion of Ligotti has generally been favorable.
- The New York Times Book Review: "If there were a literary genre called 'philosophical horror,' Thomas Ligotti's Grimscribe would easily fit within it...provocative images and a style that is both entertaining and lyrical;" [1] (http://room23.de/1192.html)
- The Washington Post: "Thomas Ligotti is the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."
Awards
Ligotti has received many awards and nominations for his work:
- 1982: Small Press Writers and Artists Organization, Best Author of Horror/Weird Fiction: "The Chymist"
- 1986: Rhysling Award, from Science Fiction Poetry Association (nomination): "One Thousand Painful Variations Performed Upon Divers Creatures Undergoing the Treatment of Dr. Moreau, Humanist"
- 1991: World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction (nomination): "The Last Feast of Harlequin"
- 1992: World Fantasy Award for Best Collection (nomination): Grimscribe: His Lives and Works
- 1997: World Fantasy Award for Best Collection (nomination): The Nightmare Factory
- 1995: Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Fiction (nomination): "The Bungalow House"
- 1996: Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection:The Nightmare Factory
- 1996: Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction "The Red Tower"
- 2002: Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction: "My Work Is Not Yet Done"
- 2002: International Horror Guild Award, Long Form Category: "My Work Is Not Yet Done"
Books
- Songs of a Dead Dreamer (1986, 1989)
- Grimscribe: His Lives and Works (1991)
- Noctuary (1994)
- The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales (1994)
- The Nightmare Factory (1996)
- In a Foreign Town, in a Foreign Land ((1996, with Current 93)
- I Have a Special Plan for This World (1997)
- This Degenerate Little Town ((2001, with Current 93)
- My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror (2002)
- Crampton: A Screenplay ((2003, with Brandon Trenz)
- Sideshow, and Other Stories (2003)
- Death Poems (2004)
External links
- Thomas Ligotti Online (http://www.ligotti.net)
- The Art of GrimScribe (http://home.snafu.de/angwa/Ligotti/index.htm) (German and English text)
- A 2002 interview with Ligotti (http://www.darkmoonrising.com/issues/jun02/?file=ligotti)
- Literature Is Entertainment or It Is Nothing (http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?iw.ligotti), a long, in-depth interview conducted by Neddal Ayad