Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr

Entry updated 13 October 2025. Tagged: Author, Theatre.

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(1922-2007) US author, who signed his name simply Kurt Vonnegut (without the Jr) after 1976. He was a Prisoner of War near the end ofWorld War Two in Dresden from December 1944 to May 1945, surviving the saturation bombing of the city and the subsequent firestorm, basing his most successful novelSlaughterhouse-Five (1969) [see below] on his experience; he was awarded a Purple Heart on his return to America, normally given to those wounded in active service. He began to write for various magazines in the early 1950s, his first sf story being "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" inCollier's Weekly for 11 February 1950; in his early career, he tried hard to avoid categorization as aGenre-SF writer, certainly as far as his short fiction, almost all of it written without much fervour for commercial markets, was concerned. Vonnegut's best short sf – which includes some of the stories first assembled inCanary in a Cat House (coll1961) and subsequently recombined with new material inWelcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works (coll1968) – was posthumously augmented by two volumes:Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction (coll2009) andWhile Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction (coll2011);Complete Stories (coll2017) assembles all ninety-seven tales.

Vonnegut's first novel was theDystopia ofAutomation,Player Piano (1952; vtUtopia 141954), which describes the dereliction of the quality of life by the progressive surrender of production and political decision toMachines. The mixture of heavy irony, bordering on blackHumour, and unashamed sentimentality displayed in this novel became the hallmark of Vonnegut's work, and is progressively exaggerated in later novels.The Sirens of Titan: An Original Novel (1959) is a fine complexSatire inWidescreen Baroque mode about, among other things, the folly of mistaking good luck for the favour of God; it features the first of a number of mock-Religions that Vonnegut would invent – the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent – and concludes with the revelation of the manipulation of human history by TralfamadorianAliens sending messages to one of their kind stranded on Titan. One leading character takes advantage of an extratemporal coign of vantage, a "chronosynclastic infundibulum" from which all moments appear co-existent – a theme which crops up again, along with the Tralfamadorians, in Vonnegut's novel about the firestorming of Dresden,Slaughterhouse-Five (see below).Mother Night (1962) is a non-sf novel about the struggle of a US ex-Nazi double agent to discover his "true" identity; several of its characters reappear in later work, helping to connect all his work into a single evolving patchwork.Cat's Cradle (1963) features a confrontation of the opposing philosophies of scientist Felix Hoenikker, inventor of "ice-nine" (which threatens to bring about theEnd of the World), and Bokonon, a rebel against rationality and architect of an avowedly fake religion whose purpose is to inure believers to the harshness of reality. Several of the terms used to describe Bokononism became nonce-words, and some may survive. These include "foma": protective untruths to live by; "karass": a group of people who do not know they are bound together in a life project (seeParanoia;Perception), and who find, if they do come to understand what is happening, that they have almost certainly created a "granfalloon": essentially a false karass composed of people who identify themselves in terms of illusory patterns of meaning: like patriots; and "wampeter": that which a karass focuses upon (seeMcGuffin).

God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (1965) is technically a non-sf novel about the one man in the world who does not suffer from samaritrophia (chronic atrophy of the conscience), but it is closely allied to much of Vonnegut's sf; it contains an oft-quoted paragraph about sf writers, and introduces the sf writerKilgore Trout – a character based in part on TheodoreSturgeon but also incorporating elements of Vonnegut's own life – who reappears inSlaughterhouse-Five,Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye, Blue Monday! (1973), and several later novels. Apparently to Vonnegut's displeasure, a novel attributed to Kilgore Trout, written by Philip JoséFarmer, appeared asVenus on the Half-Shell (1975). It was, however, the nature of Trout as an intertextual joke to be used by other writers and artists, and Trout surfaces by name or inferentially in many contexts, from the work of SalmanRushdie to an album by Ringo Starr.

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) is the central text in Vonnegut's career, though it is not generally thought to be his best novel. As withEmpire of the Sun (1984) – which occupies a similar function in the career of J GBallard –Slaughterhouse-Five contextualizes much of the imagery of Vonnegut's career through its autobiographical depiction of a personally-experienced enormity ofWorld War Two. As an adolescent, Ballard spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp; as a young American prisoner-of-war, Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden, in which at least 35,000 people died. The protagonist of the novel, Billy Pilgrim, similarly survives the Dresden firestorm, a trauma so deep that he becomes "unstuck in time", so that he is able to revisit different episodes in his own life; after being kidnapped byAlien Tralfamadorians and put on exhibit in aZoo whose interior is house-like but which is in fact the inside of a transparent dome, he comes to believe that the secret of life is to live only in the happy moments, aTime Opera where good things happen. Perhaps the most famous of Vonnegut's seemingly slick (but cumulatively devastating) catchphrases comes from this book: "So it goes".

The parallel withBallard continues to be illustrative: the later works of both writers, though they showed a natural decline in raw vitality, did not fail to continue to address the world with pained cogency.Breakfast of Champions andSlapstick, or Lonesome No More! (1976) are perhaps the least impressive later novels, both verging on lachrymose self-Parody and shot through with shoulder-shrugging verbal tics – butSlapstick'sRuined Earth setting, and its parodic Uncle Sam-likeApe as Human protagonist, last president of what remains of the United States after intense global warming (seeClimate Change) and other catastrophes, do gain poignance in hindsight, as does that protagonist's scheme to create "artificial" families through a system of shared names whose bearers are obliged to give solace to one another. In any case, Vonnegut recovered a measure of his authority in a series of novels about unfortunate innocents abroad:Jailbird (1979) andDead-Eye Dick (1982); his most impressive novel of this period isGalápagos (1985), a darkly humorousRuined Earth fantasy narrated by a remote and happily devolved descendant of the few survivors of theHolocaust.Hocus Pocus, or What's the Hurry, Sam? (1990), which carries its portrayal of a self-destroying USA through the turn of the century, is almost as compelling, and its melancholy is unnerving. The eponymous catastrophe in his final sf tale,Timequake (1997), causes the world to revert to 1991, when time begins again, but irredeemably enacts the same history: but this time we all know we are caught. A primary Vonnegut lesson – that whatever is, is "right": because nothing can be changed – is given here its final iteration. The book was indeed created as a valedictory document (Vonnegut retired from fiction writing in 1997), but closes in an almost joyous clambake attendedRecursively by most of the characters of his fiction, who bid farewell to Vonnegut, and to Kilgore Trout. "I myself prefer to laugh" Vonnegut wrote inPalm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (coll1981) about his life and work, "since there is less cleaning up to do afterward".

Vonnegut's work has a unique flavour, not only because of its sardonicWeltschmerz but also by virtue of his consistent refusal to look for scapegoats to blame for the sad state of the world. He is content to attribute human misery and misfortune to the carelessness of God the Utterly Indifferent; he is full of pity for the human predicament but can see no hope in any solutions, save perhaps for the adoption of actions and beliefs which are absurdly irrational. This is a philosophy very much in keeping with the contemporaryZeitgeist. Vonnegut has also written a play with sf elements,Happy Birthday, Wanda June (first performed 1970;1971), and had a hand in the production of a television play based on extracts from several of his works,Between Time and Timbuktu (1972; book versionBetween Time and Timbuktu, or Prometheus-5: A Space Fantasy1972). Vonnegut's essays, talks and various journalistic oddments are assembled inWampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (Opinions) (coll1974), which contains some essays on sf,Palm Sunday (see above) andFates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s (coll1991).

Late essays – all written after 1997 – were assembled asA Man Without a Country (coll2005); Vonnegut's scorn for the leaders of the Western World in the twenty-first century is scathingly transparent; the book was a best-seller. More miscellaneous material was assembled asKurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (coll2011). Most of his work has been assembled in theKurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories sequence [see Checklist for details]; the novels are complete, but – in contrast to the Library of America's generosity in earlier years – the stories are selected parsimoniously. As the shape of his long career becomes easier to assess, it becomes more and more clear that Vonnegut was one of the central American writers of the past half century. The fact that most of his work was sf has become less of a disqualification – cultural establishment critics being decreasingly able to condescend to him on that score without seeming fatuous – and his central importance can consequently only become more apparent. He was inducted into theScience Fiction Hall of Fame in 2015, apparently without damage to his reputation. [BS/JC]

further awards or honours:Seiun Award.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr

born Indianapolis, Indiana: 11 November 1922

died New York: 11 April 2007

works

series

Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories

Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories, 1950-1962 (New York: The Library of America,2012) [omni containingPlayer Piano,The Sirens of Titan,Mother Night and other material: edited by Sidney Offit:Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories: hb/]
Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories, 1963-1973 (New York: The Library of America,2011) [omni containingCat's Cradle,God Bless You, Mr Rosewater,Slaughterhouse-Five,Breakfast of Champions and other material: edited by Sidney Offit:Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories: hb/Jill Krementz]
Kurt Vonnegut: Novels 1976-1985 (New York: The Library of America,2014) [omni containingSlapstick, or Lonesome No More!,Jailbird,Deadeye Dick andGalápagos:Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories: hb/]
Kurt Vonnegut: Novels 1987-1997 (New York: The Library of America,2016) [omni containingBluebeard,Hocus Pocus andTimequake:Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories: hb/]

individual titles

Player Piano (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1952) [hb/George W Thompson]
- Utopia 14 (New York: Bantam Books,1954) [vt of the above: pb/Charles Binger]
The Sirens of Titan: An Original Novel (New York: Dell Books,1959) [pb/RichardPowers]
Mother Night (Greenwich, Connecticut: Gold Medal,1962) [pb/Diane and LeoDillon]
Cat's Cradle (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1963) [hb/BenFeder]
God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1965) [hb/]
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1969) [many reprints with many variations in the subtitle: they are not listed below: hb/PaulBacon]
- Cat's Cradle; God Bless You, Mr Rosewater; Slaughterhouse-Five (New York: Book-of-the-Month Club,1990) [omni of the above plusCat's Cradle andGod Bless You, Mr Rosewater: hb/]
Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye, Blue Monday! (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1973) [hb/Bob Giusti]
- Kurt Vonnegut (London: Octopus,1980) [omni of the above plusPlayer Piano,The Sirens of Titan,Mother Night;Cat's Cradle andSlaughterhouse-Five: hb/nonpictorial]
- Three Complete Novels (New York: Random House/Wings,1995) [omni of the above plusCat's Cradle andGod Bless You, Mr Rosewater: hb/John Paul Genzo]
Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1976) [hb/PaulBacon]
Jailbird (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1979) [hb/PaulBacon]
Dead-Eye Dick (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1982) [hb/James L McGuire]
Galápagos (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1985) [hb/Jeffrey Adams]
Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988) (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1987) [hb/Jeffrey Adams]
Hocus Pocus, or What's the Hurry, Sam? (New York: G P Putnam's Sons,1990) [hb/PaulBacon]
Timequake (New York: G P Putnam's Sons,1997) [hb/PaulBacon]

collections, plays and stories

Canary in a Cat House (Greenwich, Connecticut: Gold Medal,1961) [coll: pb/Diane and LeoDillon]
Welcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1968) [coll: hb/PaulBacon]
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1971) [play: first performed 7 October 1970 Theater de Lys, New York: hb/PaulBacon]
Between Time and Timbuktu, or Prometheus-5: A Space Fantasy (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1972) [play: hb/PaulBacon]
Sun Moon Star (New York: Harper and Row,1980) [story: chap: illus/Ivan Chermayeff: hb/]
God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian (New York: Seven Sisters Press,1999) [coll: chap: including fantasticated nonfiction: illus/hb/Jules Feiffer]
Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G P Putnam's Sons,1999) [coll: hb/PaulBacon]
Fuh-Kar-Wee Indians and the Christian Year 2000 (New York: Ragged Edge Press,1999) [story: chap: pb/]
2 B R 0 2 B (no place listed: Project Gutenberg,2007) [story: ebook: first appeared January 1962If: na/]
Armageddon in Retrospect (New York: Putnam,2008) [coll: hb/Kurt Vonnegut]
The Big Trip Up Yonder (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Wildside Press,2009) [story: chap: first appeared January 1954Galaxy: pb/]
Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction (New York: Delacorte Press,2009) [coll: hb/Kurt Vonnegut]
While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction (New York: Delacorte Press,2011) [coll: hb/Kurt Vonnegut]
Complete Stories (New York: Seven Stories Press,2017) [coll: edited by Dan Wakefield and Jerome Klinkowitz: introduction by DaveEggers: hb/]

nonfiction

You've Never Been to Barnstaple? (Barnstaple, Massachusetts: Crane Duplicating Service,1966) [nonfiction: chap: pb/]
Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (Opinions) (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1974) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Joel Schick]
Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence,1981) [nonfiction: coll: hb/photograph by Jill Krementz]
- Welcome to the Monkey House/Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (London: Vintage UK,1994) [omni of the above plusWelcome to the Monkey House: pb/]
Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation About Writing (New York: Seven Sisters Press,1999) with Lee Stringer [nonfiction: chap: hb/]
Fates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s (New York: G P Putnam's Sons,1991) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Jill Krementz]
A Man Without a Country (New York: Seven Sisters Press,2005) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Kurt Vonnegut]
Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (New York: Melville House,2011) [nonfiction: coll: in the publisher'sLast Interview series: pb/]
We Are What We Pretend To Be: The First and Last Works (New York: Vanguard Press,2012) [nonfiction: hb/]
Kurt Vonnegut: Letters (New York: Delacorte Press,2012) [nonfiction: coll: selected letters edited by Dan Wakefield: hb/photograph by Dmitri Kasterine]

about the author

Much has been written about Vonnegut; the following is a selection.

Peter J Reed.Kurt Vonnegut Jr (New York: Thomas Crowell,1972) [nonfiction: hb/]
Gary Carey, editor.Cliffs Notes on Vonnegut's Major Works (Lincoln, Nebraska: Cliffs Notes,1973) [nonfiction: hb/]
David H Goldsmith.Kurt Vonnegut: Fantasist of Fire and Ice (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press,1972) [nonfiction: pb/Terry Fowler]
Jerome Klinkowitz and John Somer, editors.The Vonnegut Statement: Original Essays on the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (New York: Delacorte Press,1973) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]
Stanley Schatt.Kurt Vonnegut Jr (Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne,1976) [nonfiction: hb/]
James Lundquist.Kurt Vonnegut (New York: Frederick Ungar,1977) [nonfiction: coll: hb/Tim Gaydos]
Jerome Klinkovitz.Kurt Vonnegut (London: Methuen,1982) [nonfiction: pb/]
Peter J Reed.The Short Fiction of Kurt Vonnegut Jr (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,1997) [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
Marc Leeds and Peter J Reed, editors.Kurt Vonnegut: Images and Representations (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,2000) [nonfiction: anth: hb/nonpictorial]
HaroldBloom, editor.Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (New York: Chelsea House,2001) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]
Thomas F Marvin.Kurt Vonnegut: A Critical Companion (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,2002) [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
Charles Shields.And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company,2011) [nonfiction: hb/]