Kurt Vonnegut: Letters

Description

Sixty years of Vonnegut's life seen through his brilliant, entertaining letters This collection of Vonnegut's letters is the autobiography he never wrote - from the letter he posted home upon being freed from a German POW camp, to notes of advice to his children- 'Don't let anybody tell you that smoking and boozing are bad for you. Here I am fifty-five years old, and I never felt better in my life'. Peppered with insights, one-liners and missives to the likes of Norman Mailer, Gunter Grass and Bernard Malamud, Vonnegut is funny, wise and modest. As he himself said- 'I am an American fad-of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop'. Like Vonnegut's books, his letters make you think, they make you outraged and they make you laugh. Written over a sixty-year period, and never published before, these letters are alive with the unique point of view that made Vonnegut one of the most original writers in American fiction.

Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. During the Second World War he served in Europe and, as a prisoner of was in Germany, witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired his classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five. He is the author of thirteen other novels, three collections of stories and five non-fiction books. Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007. Dan Wakefield first befriended Kurt Vonnegut in 1963. Like Vonnegut, he was born and raised in Indianapolis. He is a novelist and screenwriter whose books include the bestselling Going All the Way and the memoir New York in the Fifties.

The collected letters of Kurt Vonnegut include some remarkable examples of epistolary eloquence... it is the tender letters to his youngest daughter, Nanette, that are the jewel of this collection -- Jane Shilling * Sunday Telegraph Seven * One closes this volume...full of gratitude for Dan Wakefield...the editor of this labour of love that gives us one more reason to love Kurt Vonnegut -- John Sutherland * The Times * This collection is perhaps the best insight into the everyday needles of a prolific author you could hope to read -- Ed Caesar * Sunday Times * Splendidly assembled and edited by Dan Wakefield . . . [Vonnegut's] familiar, funny, cranky, acute voice . . . is chronicling his life in real time. * New York Times Book Review * Droll and self-deprecating letters offer intriguing insights into Vonnegut's life * Sunday Times *