Kurt Vonnegut

Born in Indianapolis in 1922, Vonnegut studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie and Tennessee as part of his Army training, then landed in Europe during World War II. Captured at the Battle of the Bulge, he was imprisoned in Dresden and rode out the Allied bombing underground in a meat locker. After the war he married Jane Marie Cox, worked nights at Chicago's City News Bureau, and published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952 to good reviews and poor sales. The next two decades brought well-regarded work - The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle (both Hugo-nominated), the story collection Welcome to the Monkey House - but his sixth novel changed everything. Slaughterhouse-Five hit in 1969, climbed the Times bestseller list, and resonated with a country mired in Vietnam. He spent his later years writing autobiographical essays and collections like A Man Without a Country, becoming a voice for darkly humorous takes on American life until his death in 2007.