Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer born in Indianapolis on 11 November 1922 and died on 11 April 2007. He served in the Second World War and was taken prisoner by German forces. As a prisoner he lived through the Allied bombing of Dresden, an experience that shaped much of his later work. After the war he worked in public relations and sold short stories to magazines before turning to novels.

Vonnegut blended science fiction, satire and plain, conversational prose to ask how people can stay kind in a cruel and absurd world. His short sentences, dark jokes and gentle humanism won him a wide readership, especially among younger readers in the 1960s and 70s. He remains one of the most widely read American writers of the twentieth century, admired for making serious questions about war, technology and free will feel approachable.