Author:Thomas Ligotti
Thomas Ligotti is often cited as the most curious and remarkable figure in horror literature since H. P. Lovecraft. His work is noted by critics for its display of an exceptionally grotesque imagination and accomplished prose style. In his stories, Ligotti has followed a literary tradition that began with Edgar Allan Poe, portraying characters that are outside of anything that might be called normal life, depicting strange locales far off the beaten track, and rendering a grim vision of human existence as a perpetual nightmare. The horror stories collected in Teatro Grottesco feature tormented individuals who play out their doom in various odd little towns, as well as in dark sectors frequented by sinister and often blackly comical eccentrics. The cycle of narratives introduce readers to a freakish community of artists who encounter demonic perils that ultimately engulf their lives.
An accomplished conjuror of nightmares in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft
—— The TimesLigotti is wonderfully original; he has a dark vision of a new and special kind, a vision that no one had before him
—— InterzoneA generous serving of Edgar Allan Poe, a dash of Franz Kafka, a smidgen of Robert Aickman: These comprise the components in the cauldron of creativity of Thomas Ligotti. . . . His descriptive powers are mesmerizing.
—— HellnotesQuite unlike anything else being published ... One of the most unique voices in the field ... His imagery is breathtaking
—— Science Fiction Chronicle(Ligotti uses) restrained, lyrical prose and subtly disturbing images that Poe himself might well have admired
—— USA TodayOrwell saw … that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power
—— Adam Gopnik , New Yorker[Orwell fought] the evils of the world and the weakness of his body to the day of his death, always striving, striving to tell the truth about what he saw and what he felt
—— Nicholas Walter , Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas