Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1922. He is the author of 14 novels, including New York Times best-seller Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Breakfast of Champions (1973), and Timequake (1997). Vonnegut also wrote seven short story collections, chief among them Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), and seven plays. He entered the army at age 20 and was later captured by Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, whereupon he was sent to Dresden as a POW, an experience that would come to influence his work tremendously. For his service Vonnegut received a Purple Heart and a Prisoner of War Medal. He taught at Harvard University, City College of New York, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Widely considered a humanist, Vonnegut served as the honorary president of the American Humanist Association for many years. Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007.
Audio Recordings on Kurt Vonnegut
- As part of Poetry in English at the Library of Congress, Kurt Vonnegut lectures in the Coolidge Auditorium, Feb. 1, 1971