Historic Humanist Series

Kurt Vonnegut was born November 11, 1922. He is a person who is "historic" while still living. He is, in this writer's opinion, the world's greatest living writer of English language fiction.

The defining time of Vonnegut's life came during World War II when he was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the allied fire bombing of that old city. He spent the next months cleaning up the city, looking for bodies among the wreckage. He vowed to write a book on the experience, and worked for many years before producing Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade. It is a definitive account of the horrors and senselessness of war. The hero, Bill Pilgrim, is "unstuck in time," and hence the book follows a thematic chronology that is not consistent with the normal passage of time.

Readers unfamiliar with Vonnegut's style would do better to start elsewhere in his canon, with something a little more conventional like: Player Piano, or Mother Night. My personal favorite is Slapstick, or Lonesome No More. For a quick sample of Vonnegut's genius, get a copy of Welcome the Monkey House, a collection of early short stories.

Vonnegut is the current honorary president of the American Humanist Association. I encourage you to sample his literary genius.

--Wayne Wilson