Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
The best-known entry point and a central work about war, trauma, memory, and humanism.
Author guide
Kurt Vonnegut Books in Order
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) was an American writer from Indianapolis whose work combined science fiction, satire, black comedy, social criticism, and humanist reflection. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and surviving the destruction of Dresden as a prisoner of war, he drew on those experiences in novels including Slaughterhouse-Five. He published fourteen novels, short-story collections, essays, autobiographical works, plays, a children's graphic book, and collaborative nonfiction. His writing frequently examined war, technology, bureaucracy, capitalism, free will, environmental destruction, and the moral responsibilities of individuals and societies.
science fictionsatireblack comedydystopian fictionliterary fictionshort fictionessaysmemoirdramachildren's literature
Catalog record updated .
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
Cat's Cradle
A concise introduction to Vonnegut's satirical science fiction and ethical concerns about technology.
Player Piano
An accessible early novel that establishes his critique of automation, bureaucracy, and technocracy.
Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday
A formally experimental novel that showcases his metafictional style, social satire, and visual playfulness.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (18)
- Player Piano
novel · 1952
Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly…
- The Sirens of Titan
novel · 1959
"His best book," Esquire wrote of Kurt Vonnegut's 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan, adding, "he dares not only to ask the ultimate question about the meaning of life, but to answer it." This novel fits into that aspect of the Vonnegut canon…
- Mother Night
novel · 1961
Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows…
- Cat's Cradle
novel · 1963
One of Vonnegut's major works, a young writer decides to interview the children of a scientist primarily responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb. This is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of…
- God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine
novel · 1965
Second only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and…
- Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
novel · 1969
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to…
- Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday
novel · 1973
Breakfast Of Champions is vintage Vonnegut. One of his favorite characters, aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. The result is murderously funny satire as Vonnegut looks…
- Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
novel · 1976
The book explores one of Vonnegut's favorite recurring themes, which is his belief in our need to belong extended families and how they would be an adequate, larger and more useful substitute for biological ones. The most endearing…
- Jailbird
novel · 1979
This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator.
- Galápagos: A Novel
novel · 1985
“A madcap genealogical adventure . . . Vonnegut is a postmodern Mark Twain.”—The New York Times Book Review Galápagos takes the reader back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary…
- Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916–1988)
novel · 1987
Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous…
- Hocus Pocus
novel · 1990
Eugene Debs Hartke is a Vietnam veteran, jazz pianist, college professor, and prognosticator of the apocalypse.
- Timequake
novel · 1997
According to Vonnegut's alter ego, Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur in New York City on February 13, 2001. As he struggles with this time lapse, he addresses the relationship between memory and deja-vu, humanism, and suicide.
- God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
nonfiction-collection · 1999
In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Kurt Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight.This fictional adventure, that began as a series of 90-second interludes for WNYC, New…
- Armageddon in Retrospect: And Other New and Unpublished Writings on War and Peace
nonfiction-collection · 2008
The New York Times bestseller from the author of Slaughterhouse-Five—a “gripping” posthumous collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s previously unpublished work on the subject of war and peace. A fitting tribute to a literary legend and a…
- Kurt Vonnegut: The Cornell Sun Years, 1941–1943
nonfiction-collection · 2012
- We Are What We Pretend to Be: The First and Last Works
novella-collection · 2012
Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
Nonfiction (4)
- Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage
memoir · 1981
"In this self-portrait by an American genius, Kurt Vonnegut writes with beguiling wit and poignant wisdom about his favorite comedians, country music, a dead friend, a dead marriage, and various cockamamie aspects of his all-too-human…
- Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s
memoir · 1991
“Here we have a collection of essays and speeches by me, with breezy autobiographical commentary serving as connective tissue and splints and bandages. Here we go again with real life and opinions made to look like one big, preposterous…
- A Man Without a Country: A Memoir
memoir · 2005
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations . . . this is what he is like in person.”–USA Today In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of…
- Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style
writing-guide · 2019
The art and craft of writing by one of the few grandmasters of American literature, a bonanza for writers and readers co-written by Kurt Vonnegut's former student. Here is an entirely new side of Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut as a teacher of…
Short fiction (7)
- Canary in a Cathouse
short-story-collection · 1961
- Welcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works
short-story-collection · 1968
“[Kurt Vonnegut] strips the flesh from bone and makes you laugh while he does it. . . . There are twenty-five stories here, and each hits a nerve ending.”—The Charlotte Observer Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt…
- Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction
short-story-collection · 1999
A one-of-a-kind cookbook showcasing modern and authentic clay pot cooking from the premier expert on Mediterranean cuisines Paula Wolfert is legendary for her expertise on and explorations of Mediterranean cooking. Now, Wolfert shares her…
- Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction
short-story-collection · 2009
Fourteen never-before-published short stories frequently perceptive, and at points ruefully sinister.
- While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction
short-story-collection · 2011
An anthology of 16 previously unpublished works includes selections from the iconic writer's early literary career and is complemented by more than one dozen of his original works of art and a foreword by the National Book Critics Circle…
- Sucker's Portfolio: A Collection of Previously Unpublished Writing
short-story-collection · 2013
A previously unpublished collection of six brief fiction stories, one non-fiction essay, and an unfinished science-fiction short story.
Essays and speeches (3)
- Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons
essay-collection · 1974
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons is a rare opportunity to experience Kurt Vonnegut speaking in his own voice about his own life, his views of the world, his writing, and the writing of others. An indignant, outrageous, witty, deeply felt…
- Nothing Is Lost Save Honor: Two Essays
essay-collection · 1984
- If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice to the Young
essay-collection · 2013
A collection of commencement speeches and other wit and wisdom from the New York Times–bestselling literary icon and author of Slaughterhouse-Five. Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement…
Plays (6)
- Penelope
play · 1960
- Requiem
play · 1987
- Make Up Your Mind
play · 1993
- Miss Temptation
play · 1993
- L'Histoire du Soldat
play · 1993
Other (3)
- Sun Moon Star
graphic-book · 1980
When the Creator of the universe came to Earth, It resolved to be born a male human infant, and this is what It saw when It opened Its eyes.
- Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation About Writing
conversation · 1999
In this elegantly produced, extended conversation celebrating the writing craft, Kurt Vonnegut and acclaimed "Grand Central Winter" author Lee Stringer explore what it means to be a writer -- and what it means to be human. It is an…
- Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
letters · 2012
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…
Frequently asked questions about Kurt Vonnegut
Who was Kurt Vonnegut?
Kurt Vonnegut was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, and artist known for satirical science fiction, dark humor, and humanist themes.
Sources: loc.gov (opens in a new tab)vonnegutlibrary.org (opens in a new tab)
When and where was Kurt Vonnegut born, and when did he die?
He was born on November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and died on April 11, 2007, after a fall at his New York home.
How did Kurt Vonnegut’s military service shape his writing?
Vonnegut served in the U.S. Army, was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, and survived the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war. These experiences profoundly influenced his worldview and inspired Slaughterhouse-Five.
Sources: loc.gov (opens in a new tab)collections.libraries.indiana.edu (opens in a new tab)
What influenced Kurt Vonnegut’s ideas and writing style?
His journalism training encouraged direct, straightforward prose, while his work in advertising and anthropology shaped his interest in technology, culture, and social systems. His Indianapolis upbringing and wartime experiences also informed his satire and humanism.
Sources: vonnegut.com (opens in a new tab)collections.libraries.indiana.edu (opens in a new tab)
What awards and honors did Kurt Vonnegut receive, and what is his legacy?
He received a Purple Heart and a Prisoner of War Medal for his military service and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973. He is remembered as a major American writer whose work continues to influence readers, educators, and free-expression advocates.
Sources: loc.gov (opens in a new tab)amacad.org (opens in a new tab)vonnegutlibrary.org (opens in a new tab)