Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 11, 2024

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) was an American writer. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels and three short story collections; further works were published after his death. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943. Deployed to Europe to fight in World War II, he was captured by the Germans and interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a slaughterhouse. Vonnegut published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952. Two of his novels, The Sirens of Titan (1959) and Cat's Cradle (1963), were nominated for the Hugo Award. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), a best-seller that resonated with its readers for its anti-war sentiment amidst the ongoing Vietnam War, thrust Vonnegut into fame as an important contemporary writer and a dark humor commentator on American society. Numerous scholarly works have examined Vonnegut's writing and humor.