Literary Giants - Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was born November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., was a successful architect and his mother, Edith Lieber was a homemaker. On Mother’s Day in 1944, Edith took her own life. Vonnegut would himself attempt suicide in 1982.

Vonnegut attended Cornell University where he majored in chemistry and biology. While there he was a member of the fraternity Delta Upsilon, as was his father before him. He served as assistant managing editor and associate editor for the Cornell Daily Sun which was the student newspaper.

When he left Cornell he enlisted in the United States Army and went to Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee to study mechanical engineering. His experiences while in the army, especially his time as a prisoner of war, had a profound effect on his life and was a major influence in his later writing. Vonnegut was imprisoned in Dresden and was a witness to the fire bombing which destroyed most of the city. He was part of a group of prisoners who survived the attack because they were locked up in an underground slaughter house that the Germans had turned into a detention facility. The building was referred to as Schlachthof Funf (Slaughterhouse Five). His experience in this building was the basis for that novel.

After the war Vonnegut married his childhood sweetheart, Jane Cox. They had three children and separated in 1970. After his sister Alice died from cancer, Vonnegut adopted her three boys. He divorced Jane in 1979 and married Jill Krementz, a photographer. They adopted Lily in 1982, the seventh child in the family.

Vonnegut went to the University of Chicago as a graduate student. His novel Cat’s Cradle was accepted as his thesis and he was awarded the M.A. degree in 1971. He taught at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Cat’s Cradle had become a best seller and he began writing Slaughterhouse Five which is now considered one of the 20th Century’s best American novels.

He was known for his humanist beliefs and for a time was honorary president of the American Humanist Association. Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

Some of his works were a blend of satire, black comedy, and science fiction. Vonnegut wrote fourteen novels, short stories, essays, articles and a screen play. Among his best known works are Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, Slapstick and Breakfast of Champions. There are several famous quotes attributed to him. He continued to write for the magazine In These Times until his death. He was affectionately called the modern day Mark Twain.

Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007 from brain injuries sustained several weeks earlier in a fall at his Manhattan home.