caption death_date death_place children birth_place nationality name birth_date spouse genre image article_title birth_name occupation
vonnegut in 1972 11 april 2007 manhattan , new york '' edith vonnegut nannette vonnegut ` biological children : '' ' mark vonnegut indianapolis , indiana american kurt vonnegut 11 november 1922 jane -rrb- jill krementz -lrb- 1979 -- 2007 ; his death marie -rrb- cox -lrb- 1945 -- 1971 ; divorced satire gallows humor science fiction kurt vonnegut 1972.jpg kurt vonnegut
 kurt vonnegut , jr. . author , humorist
kurt vonnegut

kurt vonnegut , jr. -lrb- ; november 11 , 1922april 11 , 2007 -rrb- was an american writer and humorist .
in a career spanning over 50 years , vonnegut published fourteen novels , three short story collections , five plays , and five works of non-fiction .
he is most famous for his darkly satirical , best-selling novel `` slaughterhouse-five '' -lrb- 1969 -rrb- .
born and raised in indianapolis , indiana , vonnegut attended cornell university , but dropped out in january 1943 and enlisted in the united states army .
he was deployed to europe to fight in world war ii , and was captured by the germans during the battle of the bulge .
he was interned in dresden and survived the allied bombing of city by taking refuge in a meat locker .
after the war , vonnegut married jane marie cox , with whom he had three children .
he later adopted his sister 's three sons , after she died of cancer and her husband died in a train accident .
vonnegut published his first novel , `` player piano '' , in 1952 .
the novel was reviewed positively , but was not commercially successful .
in the nearly twenty years that followed , vonnegut published several novels that were only marginally successful , such as `` cat 's cradle '' -lrb- 1963 -rrb- and `` god bless you , mr. rosewater '' -lrb- 1964 -rrb- .
vonnegut 's `` magnum opus '' , however , was his immediately successful sixth novel , `` slaughterhouse-five '' .
the book 's antiwar sentiment resonated with its readers amidst the ongoing vietnam war , and its reviews were generally positive .
after its release , `` slaughterhouse-five '' rocketed to the top of `` the new york times '' best seller list , thrusting vonnegut into fame .
he was invited to give speeches , lectures , and commencement addresses around the country and received many awards and honors .
later in his career , vonnegut published several autobiographical essay and short-story collections , including `` fates worse than death '' -lrb- 1991 -rrb- , and `` a man without a country '' -lrb- 2005 -rrb- .
after his death , he was hailed as a morbidly comical commentator on the society in which he lived , and as one of the most important contemporary writers .
vonnegut 's son mark published a compilation of his father 's unpublished compositions , titled `` armageddon in retrospect '' .
numerous scholarly works were released , examining vonnegut 's writing and humor .
