Kurt Vonnegut author page

Kurt Vonnegut biography

Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer of novels, short stories, essays and literary collections. His early fiction included Player Piano, a 1952 novel about an automated future society, and The Sirens of Titan, the 1959 novel that brought wider attention to his humour, satire and imaginative style. Cat’s Cradle followed in 1963 and became one of the books most closely associated with his reputation as a social satirist.

Slaughterhouse-Five centres on the firebombing of Dresden during the Second World War and draws on Vonnegut’s experience as an American prisoner of war. The novel combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography and satire through the story of Billy Pilgrim. It was published in 1969, after what Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write about the event he had witnessed.

Vonnegut’s mid-career novels included Cat’s Cradle in 1963, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater in 1965, Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969 and Breakfast of Champions in 1973. His later books included Timequake, A Man Without a Country and Like Shaking Hands with God, written with Lee Stringer. A Man Without a Country was published by Random House Trade Paperbacks on 16 January 2007.

Kurt Vonnegut teaching resources

• Kurt Vonnegut’s official website provides an illustrated chronological biography covering his childhood, school journalism, wartime imprisonment in Dresden, family life, major novels, political activism and later career.
• The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library education page gives details of its annual virtual Teaching Vonnegut conference for educators, alongside writing workshops, guest speakers, literary events and Banned Books Week programmes.
• The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library virtual tour offers an interactive exploration of exhibits containing original manuscripts, personal letters, first editions, rare artefacts and displays about Vonnegut’s writing, life and defence of intellectual freedom.
• Penguin Random House’s Slaughterhouse-Five teacher’s guide is a 12-page PDF for Reading Level 9 containing historical background, chapter-by-chapter vocabulary and comprehension questions, discussion prompts, classroom activities, research tasks and further-reading suggestions.
• Penguin Random House’s Cat’s Cradle teacher’s guide is an eight-page PDF for Reading Level 9 with teaching ideas on satire, irony, point of view and Cold War history, chapter-based questions, discussion topics, writing activities, research projects and cross-curricular science tasks.
• ReadWriteThink’s Slaughterhouse-Five lesson plan provides a Grades 9 to 12 teaching sequence on theme and language, with printable extracts, a chapter guide, a music project brief, liner-note examples, an assessment rubric and a video of students presenting their work.