Stories

Thomas Ligotti is known as one of the best modern horror authors who works mainly in short form, and his output is presented primarily as stories. A distinctive feature of the writer’s works is a special style that combines black humor and frequent use of quotations, mostly from various philosophical works.

In his stories, Ligotti pays great attention to problems of human psychology—analysis of the phenomenon of fear, features of individual perception of the surrounding reality, symptoms of mental disorders, and so on.

Among the authors who influenced him, Ligotti names Vladimir Nabokov, Edgar Allan Poe, William Burroughs, Emil Cioran, Bruno Schulz, and many others. Critics have repeatedly noted the influence of such writers as Franz Kafka, H. P. Lovecraft, and Jorge Luis Borges on Ligotti’s work and worldview as well.