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Thomas Ligotti (born July 9, 1953) is a contemporary American horror author and reclusive literary cult figure.^[1] His writings have been noted as being rooted in several literary genres – most prominently weird fiction – and have overall been described by critics such as S.T. Joshi as works of "philosophical horror", often written as short stories and novellas and with similarities to gothic fiction.^[1] The worldview espoused by Ligotti in both his fiction and non-fiction has been described as profoundly pessimistic and nihilistic.^[1][2]The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."^[3]

Overview

Ligotti started his career as a published writer in the early 1980s with a number of short stories published in various American small press magazines. He was contributing editor to Grimoire from 1982 to 1985.^[4] While his tales gathered a small following, Ligotti's relative anonymity and reclusiveness led to speculation about his identity. In an introduction to a collection of Ligotti fiction, The Nightmare Factory (1996), Poppy Z. Brite mentioned these notions with a rhetorical question: "Are you out there, Thomas Ligotti?"^[5]

He has cited Thomas Bernhard, William S. Burroughs, Emil Cioran, Vladimir Nabokov, Edgar Allan Poe, Giacomo Leopardi, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, and Bruno 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's Cthulhu Mythos, and one, "The Last Feast of Harlequin", was dedicated to Lovecraft. Also among his avowed influences are Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, and Arthur Machen, all fin 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 as Arthur Schopenhauer and Peter Wessel Zapffe.^[1]

Ligotti has suffered from chronic anxiety and anhedonia for much of his life; these have been prominent themes in his work.^[1] Ligotti avoids the explicit 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 a novella, My Work Is Not Yet Done (2002)^[6] In 2011, he published The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, a non-fiction work.

In 2015, Ligotti's first two collections, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, were republished in one volume by Penguin Classics as Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe.^[7] Michael Calia of The Wall Street Journal wrote of the reprint that "Horror writer Thomas Ligotti is about to enter the American literary canon. Next month Penguin Classics will publish a volume of Mr. Ligotti’s short stories, making him one of 10 living writers, including Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, among the hundreds the imprint has published in the U.S." ^[8] Ligotti's work received high praise following the publication from the likes of The New York Times Book Review,^[9] The Los Angeles Times Review of Books,^[10] The Washington Post,^[11] and The New Yorker.^[12]Terrence Rafferty contrasts Ligotti with Stephen 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."^[9]

Influences in other media

In 2014, the HBO television series True Detective attracted attention from some of Ligotti's fans because of the striking resemblance between the pessimistic, antinatalist philosophy espoused in the first few episodes by the character of Rust Cohle (played by Matthew McConaughey) and Ligotti's own philosophical pessimism and antinatalism, especially as expressed in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Prior to accusations that dialogue from Cohle's character in True Detective were lifted from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race,^[13][14] the series' writer, Nic Pizzolatto, confirmed in The Wall Street Journal^[15][16][17] that Ligotti, along with several other writers and texts in the weird supernatural horror genre, had indeed influenced him. Pizzolatto said he found The Conspiracy Against the Human Race to be "incredibly powerful writing".^[17] On the topic of hard-boiled detectives, he asked: "What could be more hardboiled than the worldview of Ligotti or [Emil] Cioran?"^[17]

Collaborations with musicians

Ligotti collaborated with the musical group Current 93 on the albums In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land (1997, reissued 2002), I Have a Special Plan for This World (2000), This Degenerate Little Town (2001) and The Unholy City (2003), all released on David Tibet's Durtro label. Tibet has also published several limited editions of Ligotti's books on Durtro Press. Additionally, Ligotti played guitar on Current 93's contribution to the compilation album Foxtrot, whose proceeds went to the treatment of musician John Balance's alcoholism.^[18]

Personal life

Ligotti's ancestry is three-quarters Sicilian, 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".^[19]

Ligotti attended Macomb County Community College between 1971 and 1973 and graduated from Wayne State University in 1978.^[20] For 23 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. He politically identifies as socialist.^[21][22]

Awards

• 1982: Small Press Writers and Artists Organization, Best Author of Horror/Weird Fiction: The Chymist^[23]


• 1986: Rhysling Award, from Science Fiction Poetry Association (nomination): One Thousand Painful Variations Performed Upon Divers Creatures Undergoing the Treatment of Dr. Moreau, Humanist^[24]


• 1991: World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction (nomination): The Last Feast of Harlequin^[25]


• 1992: World Fantasy Award for Best Collection (nomination): Grimscribe: His Lives and Works^[25]


• 1997: World Fantasy Award for Best Collection (nomination): The Nightmare Factory^[25]


• 1995: Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Fiction (nomination): The Bungalow House^[26]


• 1996: Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection: The Nightmare Factory^[26]


• 1996: Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction: The Red Tower^[26]


• 1996: British Fantasy Award for Best Fiction Collection: The Nightmare Factory^[27]


• 2002: Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction: My Work Is Not Yet Done^[26]


• 2002: International Horror Guild Award, Long Form Category: My Work Is Not Yet Done^[28]


• 2010: Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction (nomination) The Conspiracy Against the Human Race^[26]

In July 2015 Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti, edited by Matt Cardin, was announced as one of the nominees for that year's World Fantasy Awards.^[29]

Bibliography

This section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. (September 2015)

By him

Books

• 
  Songs of a Dead Dreamer (1986, rev. & exp. 1989)


• 
  Grimscribe: His Lives and Works (1991)


• 
  Noctuary (1994)


• 
  The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales (1994)


• 
  The Nightmare Factory (1996). Essentially an omnibus of selections from Ligotti's first three collections, with a concluding section containing new stories.


• 
  In a Foreign Town, in a Foreign Land (1997, accompanying CD by Current 93)


• 
  I Have a Special Plan for This World (2000, accompanying CD by Current 93)


• 
  This Degenerate Little Town (2001, accompanying CD by Current 93)


• 
  The Unholy City (2002, accompanying CD by 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)


• 
  The Shadow at the Bottom of the World (2005)


• 
  Teatro Grottesco (2006, reprinted in 2008)


• 
  The Conspiracy against the Human Race (2010)


• 
  The Spectral Link (2014)


• 
  Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti (2014), edited by Matt Cardin


• 
  Songs of a Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe (2015)

Stories/poems/screenplays

• The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein, Citizen of Geneva


• Alice's Last Adventure


• Allan & Adelaide: An Arabesque


• Allan and Adelaide—An Arabesque


• Autumn Horror


• Autumnal


• The Bells Will Sound Forever


• The Blasphemous Enlightenment of Prof. Francis Wayland Thurston of Boston, Providence, and the Human Race


• The Blonde: A Sonnet [under the pseudonym Frank Santino]


• The Bungalow House


• The Career of Nightmares


• Charnel House of the Moon


• The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise: A Tale of Possession in Old Grosse Pointe


• The Chymist [Part of The Nyctalops Trilogy]


• The Clown Puppet


• The Cocoons


• The Complete Madman [under the pseudonym Charles Miguel Riaz]


• The Consolations of Horror


• Conversations in a Dead Language


• Crampton [by Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz] [Unproduced screenplay written 1998, for an episode of The X-Files]


• Death without End


• The Decayed Mystic [under the pseudonym Charles Miguel Riaz]


• The Demon Man


• The Deranged Poet [under the pseudonym Charles Miguel Riaz]


• Discourse on Blackness


• Dr. Locrian's Asylum


• Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech


• Dream of a Mannikin


• The Dreaming in Nortown


• Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes [Part of The Nyctalops Trilogy]


• The Dwarf by Aloysius Bertrand, translated by Thomas Ligotti


• The Eternal Devotion of the Governess to the Residents of Bly


• The Eternal Mirage


• The Ever-Vigilant Guardians of Secluded Estates


• Envoi


• The Excruciating Final Days of Dr. Henry Jekyll, Englishman


• Eye of the Lynx [Part of The Nyctalops Trilogy]


• The Fabulous Alienation of the Outsider, Being of No Fixed Abode


• Flowers of the Abyss


• The Frolic


• Gas Station Carnivals


• Ghost Stories for the Dead


• The Glamour (Short Story)


• The Greater Festival of Masks


• The Heart of Count Dracula, Descendent of Attila, Scourge of God


• His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House


• I Have a Special Plan for This World [short story]


• I Have a Special Plan for This World [verse]


• Horror Stories: A Nightmare Scenario


• In the Night, in the Dark


• In the Shadow of Another World


• The Inquisitor


• The Insufferable Salvation of Lawrence Talbot the Wolfman


• The Interminable Equation


• The Interminable Residence of the Friends of the House of Usher


• The Intolerable Lesson of the Phantom of the Opera


• Introduction (The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales)


• "Introduction" [to Grimscribe]


• Invocation to the Void


• The Journal of J. P. Drapeau


• The Last Feast of Harlequin


• Les Fleurs


• The Library of Byzantium


• The Lost Art of Twilight


• Mad Night of Atonement


• Mad Night of Atonement: A Future Tale


• The Madman, by Aloysius Bertrand, translated by Thomas Ligotti


• Masquerade of a Dead Sword


• The Masters Eyes Shining with Secrets


• The Mechanical Museum [by John B. Ford and Thomas Ligotti]


• The Medusa


• Metaphysica Morum


• Michigan Basement [by Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz]


• Miss Plarr


• The Mocking Mystery


• Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel


• The Murderer, by Gaston Danville, translated by Thomas Ligotti


• The Music of the Moon


• My Case for Retributive Action


• My Work Is Not Yet Done


• The Mystics of Muelenburg


• The Name Is Nothing


• The Nameless Horror


• Nethescurial


• New Faces in the City


• The Night School


• The Nightmare Network


• No One Knows The Big News


• Nobody Is Anybody


• Notebook of the Night


• Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story


• Oneiric Horror


• One May Be Dreaming


• One Thousand Painful Variations Performed upon Divers Creatures Undergoing the Treatment of Dr. Moreau, Humanist


• The Order of Illusion


• Our Temporary Supervisor


• The Perilous Legacy of Emily St. Aubert, Inheritress of Udolpho


• The Physic


• The Player Who Takes No Chances


• Postscript [under the pseudonym Charles Miguel Riaz]


• The Premature Death of H. P. Lovecraft, Oldest Man in New England


• The Premature Transfiguration


• Primordial Loathing


• The Prodigy of Dreams


• Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror


• The Puppet Masters


• Purity


• The Real Wolf


• The Red Tower


• Sailing into Night [A round-robin with sixteen other authors]


• Salvation by Doom


• Sardonic Mundane [as by Louis Miguel Riaz]


• The Scream: From 1800 to the Present


• The Sect of the Idiot


• Selections of Lovecraft


• Severini


• The Shadow, The Darkness


• The Shadow at the Bottom of the World


• Sideshow and Other Stories


• The Small People


• A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing


• Some Things They Will Never Tell You [verse]


• The Spectacles in the Drawer


• The Spectral Estate


• The Strange Design of Master Rignolo


• The Striken Philosopher [under the pseudonym Charles Miguel Riaz]


• Studies in Horror


• Studies in Shadow


• Suicide by Imagination


• The Superb Companion of Andre de V., Anti-Pygmalion


• Teatro Grottesco


• Ten Steps to Thin Mountain


• Things They Will Never Tell You


• This Degenerate Little Town


• The Town Manager


• The Transparent Alias of William Wilson, Sportsman and Scoundrel


• The Troubles of Dr. Thoss


• The Tsalal


• The Unbearable Rebirth of the Phantom of the Wax Museum


• The Unfamiliar


• The Unnatural Persecution, by a Vampire, of Mr. Jacob J.


• Vastarien


• The Voice in the Bones


• Welcome To The Unholy City


• What Becomes of the Body [verse]


• What Happens to Faces" [verse]


• What Good Is Your Head?" [verse]


• When You Hear the Singing, You Will Know It Is Time


• The Worthy Inmate of the Will of the Lady Ligeia


• You Do Not Own Your Own Head

About him

• 
  The Thomas Ligotti Reader: Essays and Explorations (2003), edited by Darrell Schweitzer. A collection of essays about Ligotti's work, which includes one by Ligotti on the horror genre, a Ligotti interview, and a bibliography of his published works.


• 
  Studies in Modern Horror, issue #2 (2004), edited by N. G. Christakos. This issue of the scholarly journal concerning contemporary weird tales includes Nick Curtis' essay "Notes on Time Displacement and Memory Loss in Crampton" and the first printed version of The Unholy City poem cycle by Ligotti.


• 
  Studies in Modern Horror, issue #4 (2006), edited by N. G. Christakos. This issue of the scholarly journal concerning contemporary weird tales includes Stephen Tompkins' essay, The Nemesis of Mimesis: Thomas Ligotti, Worlds Elsewhere, and the Darkness Ten Times Black.


• 
  The Grimscribe’s Puppets edited by Joseph S. Pulver, a collection of tales in tribute to and based upon Ligotti (Miskatonic Press 2013).


• Scottish philosopher Ray Brassier wrote the Foreword to Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010).^[30][31]

Comics adaptations

• 
  The Nightmare Factory (2007)


• 
  The Nightmare Factory – Volume 2 (2008)

Other works

Ligotti gives a favorable quote in the introduction to Nova Scotia, Canada, fiction writer Barry Wood's short story "Nowhere to Go" (2008) published in Postscripts #14. Ligotti has also provided blurbs for books by Eddie M. Angerhuber, Matt Cardin, Sarah Perry, Michael Cisco, the philosopher Eugene Thacker, and Thomas Wiloch.
Thomas Ligotti served as editor for the revised edition of “Haunted Universe: The True Knowledge of Enlightenment” by Steven Norquist. Ligotti also approved an excerpt from “Professor Nobody’s little lectures on Supernatural Horror” to be used in the introduction. Ligotti is mentioned and thanked in the acknowledgements of the book for challenging the author to present “Haunted Universe in its most pure and powerful form.”

References

External links

• 
  Thomas Ligotti Online – Fan site, wealth of information, media and discussion on Thomas Ligotti.


• 
  Horror Garage interview with Thomas Ligotti conducted by Mark McLaughlin in 2008


• 
  "It's all a matter of personal pathology" -a July 2006 interview With Ligotti conducted by Matt Cardin.


• 
  Literature Is Entertainment or It Is Nothing – a long, in-depth interview conducted by Neddal Ayad.


• Listing of his works


• 
  Thomas Ligotti at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  


• 
  Interview, TANK Magazine #64 (Fall 2015)