Kurt Vonnegut
11 November 1922 – 11 April 2007
Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer whose novels combined satire, science fiction and black comedy. Captured during the Battle of the Bulge, he survived the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience that formed the basis of his best-known novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). He published fourteen novels along with short stories, plays and essays over a career spanning five decades.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Kurt Vonnegut.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Overlapped 85 years →
- Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) Overlapped 85 years →
- Chen-Ning Yang (1922–2025) Overlapped 85 years →
- Dorothy Vaughan (1910–2008) Overlapped 85 years →
- François Jacob (1920–2013) Overlapped 85 years →
- Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Overlapped 85 years →
Life events
Vonnegut was born the youngest of three children to an architect father and a family of German-American descent.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe studied biochemistry at Cornell and wrote for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe left Cornell to join the army and was trained in mechanical engineering before being sent to Europe.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe was taken prisoner in December 1944 and was in Dresden during the Allied firebombing of the city in February 1945.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis master's thesis was rejected, and the university later awarded him the degree on the basis of Cat's Cradle.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe corporate research laboratory setting supplied material for his first novel.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe novel depicts a mechanised society in which engineers have displaced most human labour.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgDrawing on his Dresden experience, the novel became a bestseller and his most widely read work.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe marriage followed his divorce from his first wife, Jane Marie Cox.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe died of injuries sustained in a fall at his home.
Source: en.wikipedia.org