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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.
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 both been prominent themes in his work.
Ligotti generally avoids the explicit violence common in some recent horror fiction, preferring to establish an intensely disquieting, nihilistic atmosphere through the use of subtlety and repetition. He has cited Vladimir Nabakov, 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--"The Sect of the Idiot"--makes explicit reference to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and another 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 excercises 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.
Ligotti has collaborated with the musical group Current 93.
Critical opinion of Ligotti has generally been favorable.
Ligotti has received many awards and nominations for his work:
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