Writer Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84
One of the outstanding figures of modern US literature, Kurt Vonnegut, has died aged 84 in New York.
He became a cult figure among students in the 1960s and 1970s with his classics of US counterculture.
The pivotal moment of his life was the bombing of Dresden by allied forces in 1945. The experience informed his best-known work, Slaughterhouse Five.
He suffered brain injuries after a fall at his home in Manhattan and died on Wednesday, said his wife Jill Krementz.
Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1922 – a fourth-generation German-American.
He studied chemistry at New York’s Cornell University before enlisting in the US Army during World War II.
After leaving the army, he reported for Chicago’s City News bureau, then joined the public relations department of General Electric – a job he loathed.
His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951. The story, which describes a world in which machines have taken over, led to the author being dismissed as a science fiction writer.
Critical acclaim came 11 years later, in 1963, with the publication of Cat’s Cradle.
The novel is a satire on modern science which, according to Vonnegut, promises progress while bringing about the end of the world.
In the story, Caribbean islanders adopt a new religion – Bokononism – after scientists create Ice-9, a crystal that turns water solid and eventually destroys all life on Earth.
But he will be best remembered for Slaughterhouse Five – which draws directly on Vonnegut’s own experience of the firebombing of Dresden, Germany during World War II.
Former Ramblings of an Insane, Lesbian, Book Writing Crip
