Kurt Vonnegut Jr:
(Indianapolis (Indiana), 11 November 1922 – New York, 11 April 2007) was an American writer and painter.
Vonnegut was born the youngest of three children. His father Kurt Sr. was an architect, and his mother Edith came from a wealthy brewing family.
Vonnegut studied at Cornell University, where Thomas Pynchon also studied.
The building where Vonnegut stayed as a prisoner of war
He wrote nearly 20 novels, often bestsellers. He also wrote short stories, essays and plays. His best-known novel is Slaughterhouse-Five about the devastating bombing of Dresden in 1945 that Vonnegut himself experienced as an American prisoner of war. The book contributed most to the mythologisation of this disaster.
Despite his success, Vonnegut struggled with depression; he even attempted suicide in 1984.
Vonnegut was married to Jill Krementz. He died in April 2007 from a brain injury he had suffered a few weeks earlier from a fall down the stairs in one of his two New York homes.
People should practice an art in order to make their souls grow and not to make money or become famous. Paint a picture. Write.
Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow… The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don’t show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.
