R. A. Lafferty

Raphael Aloysius Lafferty was born in Neola, Iowa, in 1914 and grew up in Oklahoma. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and later worked as an electrical engineer before turning to writing full-time in the 1960s. Lafferty's first published story, "The Wagons," appeared in 1960, and he quickly became a distinctive voice in science fiction. His major works include the novels Past Master (1968) and The Devil is Dead (1971), but he is most celebrated for his short fiction, collected in volumes such as Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970) and Strange Doings (1972). Lafferty's prose is characterized by baroque wordplay, folkloric cadences, and a deep Catholic sensibility, often subverting genre conventions. Though never a mainstream bestseller, he influenced later writers like Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe. He received a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1990.