Kurt Vonnegut Biography

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the @Battle of the Bulge", and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, "Slaughterhouse-Five", the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" (1969), "Cat's Cradle" (1963), and "Breakfast of Champions" (1973).

Works:

Novels:

• Player Piano (1952)
• The Sirens of Titan (1959)
• Mother Night (1961)
• Cat's Cradle (1963)
• God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
• Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
• Breakfast of Champions (1973)
• Slapstick (1976)
• Jailbird (1979)
• Deadeye Dick (1982)
• Galápagos (1985)
• Bluebeard (1987)
• Hocus Pocus (1990)
• Timequake (1997)

Fiction:

• Canary in a Cathouse (1961)
• Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
• Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)
• Between Time and Timbuktu (1972)
• Bagombo Snuff Box (1997)
• God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Nonfiction

• Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974)
• Palm Sunday (1981)
• Fates Worse Than Death (1991)
• A Man Without a Country (2005)