The writings of H.P. Lovecraft have seen a renewal of interest in recent years, despite the fact that he was a well-known racist and xenophobe. Writing in the early 20th century, he imagined monsters that gave form to fear of difference.
Creatures like Cthulhu, probably his best-known and most borrowed invention, effectively challenge human complacency about our place in the world as the most powerful species. Lovecraft describes Cthulhu as a “huge, formless white polypous thing; a "squid-head with writhing feelers” that inhabits the lost city of R’lyeh, described as “nothing of this or of any sane planet”.
