Slaughterhouse 5

Marvellous…the writing is pungent, the antics uproarious, the wit as sharp as a hypodermic needle * Daily Telegraph *A laughing prophet of doom * New York Times *Mr Vonnegut knows a great deal about what is probably the largest massacre in modern history - the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945. Slaughterhouse Five is a reaction to the event by one of our most gifted and incisive novelists. A work of keen literary artistry – Joseph Heller, author of ‘Catch-22’I came to this book later in life. I think it is, among other things, the loveliest, most delicate account of post-traumatic stress I’ve ever read — like the water that simply runs from the eyes of Billy Pilgrim. – Elizabeth Strout, author of ‘My Name is Lucy Barton’Unique…one of the writers who map our landscapes for us, who give names to the places we know best – Doris LessingAn extraordinary success. A book to read and reread. He is a true artist * New York Times Book Review *Agonising, funny. His eloquent concern transforms something as pedestrian as a war movie seen back to front into a vision which, in its weird way, is as effecting as any short passage ever written against war – Time magazineVery tough and very funny…sad and delightful…very Vonnegut * New York Times *Splendid art… a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears * Life magazine *Brilliant…this war story is expertly entertaining: various modes of popular heroics are parodied, pitiful instances of human folly stripped and displayed tragi-comically… Dense with reverberant cross-references and juxtapositions * Financial Times *

Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. An army intelligence scout during the Second World War, he was captured by the Germans and witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired his classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five. After the war he worked as a police reporter, an advertising copywriter and a public relations man for General Electric. His first novel Player Piano (1952) achieved underground success. Cat’s Cradle (1963) was hailed by Graham Greene as ‘one of the best novels of the year by one of the ablest living authors’. His eighth book, Slaughterhouse-Five was published in 1969 and was a literary and commercial success, and was made into a film in 1972. Vonnegut is the author of thirteen other novels, three collections of stories and five non-fiction books. Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007.