Rhys Hughes

I am a writer of Fantastika and Speculative Fiction. My earliest surviving short story dates from 1989, and since that time I have embarked on an ambitious project of writing a story cycle consisting of exactly 1000 linked tales. Recently I decided to give this cycle the overall name of PANDORA'S BLUFF. The reference is to the box of troubles in the old myth. Each tale is a trouble, but hope can be found within them all. My favourite fiction writers are Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, Boris Vian, Flann O'Brien, Alasdair Gray and Donald Barthelme, all of whom have a well-developed sense of irony and a powerful imagination. I particularly enjoy literature that combines humour with seriousness, and that fuses the emotional with the intellectual, the profound with the lighthearted, the spontaneous with the precise. My first book was published in 1995 and sold slowly but it seemed to strike a chord with some people. My subsequent books sold more strongly as my reputation gradually increased. I have been told that I am a "cult author" and I'm pleased with the description, but obviously I also want to reach out to a wider audience!