Thomas Harris Biography

Thomas Harris is an American novelist whose best known work is The Silence of the Lambs, 1988 horror thriller that is one of four books about a cannibalistic psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter.

Harris earned a degree from Baylor University and spent his early career as a crime reporter in New York City.

Then Harris and two friends got together and wrote Black Sunday, 1975 thriller that turned into a big budget movie in 1977 (the book was published under Harris’s name).

Harris quit his reporting job and has been a novelist ever since. He’s not prolific, but he sure is successful, both in book sales and box office results.

His Hannibal Lecter books include Manhunter (1981, film version 1986), The Silence of the Lambs (1988, film version 1991), Hannibal (1999, film version 2001) and Hannibal Rising (2006, film version 2007). A second version of Manhunter, titled Red Dragon, was released in 2002.

Hannibal Lecter has been portrayed on the big screen by Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins and Gaspard Ulliel, and on the TV screen by Mads Mikkelsen (2013-15).