Kurt Vonnegut
![](/Images/godic/202502/20/Kurt_Vonnegut_19721943.jpg")
![Kurt Vonnegut in his 1940 Shortridge High School yearbook](/Images/godic/202502/20/Kurt_Vonnegut_-_High_School_Yearbook1944.PNG")
![Portrait of Vonnegut in U.S. Army uniform between 1943 and 1945](/Images/godic/202502/20/Kurt-Vonnegut-US-Army-portrait1944.jpg")
![Dresden, 1945; Over ninety percent of the city's center was destroyed.](/Images/godic/202502/20/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-Z0309-310,_Zerstörtes_Dresden1944.jpg")
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (/ˈvɒnᵻɡət/; November 11, 1922 –April 11, 2007) was an American author. 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 (1969).