R.A. Lafferty books

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R.A. Lafferty was an American writer who published science fiction and fantasy from 1960 through the early 1990s. He spent most of his life in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and did not begin writing fiction until his mid-thirties. His style was unlike anything else in the genre: tall-tale humor, Catholic theology, and Choctaw history mixed with science fiction concepts in ways that baffled and delighted readers in roughly equal measure.

His short fiction is where his reputation is strongest. Stories like “Slow Tuesday Night,” “Eurema’s Dam” (Hugo Award winner, 1973), and “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” are considered classics. He published prolifically in magazines and anthologies throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Lafferty also wrote novels including Past Master (1968), Fourth Mansions (1969), and Okla Hannali (1972), a historical novel about the Choctaw nation that stands apart from his genre work. His fiction has been championed by writers like Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe, though he remains less well known than many of his contemporaries. He received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1990.