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Vendor
Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus
Original language
English

KURT VONNEGUT

Dan Wakefield

The Making of a Writer

Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's
Cradle, and many other brilliant novels, is one of the grandmasters of
American literature, often using science fiction, humor, and his humanist view
of society to show us the absurdity and the loveliness of life on earth. Born in
1922, Vonnegut's life was informed by the vicissitudes of good fortune and great despair: his family was wealthy, but lost everything in the market crash of 1929; he was the youngest son in a loving family, until his mother fell into a depression and committed suicide; he joined the army in WWII with great pride for his country, but became a prisoner of war and a witness to the firebombing of the city of Dresden. These and many others were the experiences that made him a writer. But how did he channel the highs and lows of his life into great writing?

In this, the first biography of Kurt Vonnegut for young people, Dan Wakefield,
a friend and mentee of Vonnegut's for decades, distills Kurt's novels,
essays, interviews, letters, and personal experiences into a beautiful story of the making of a writer. On the hundredth anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's birth,
here is a burgeoning artist's life to inspire anyone who has read Vonnegut's
work or who aspires to write themselves.
Available products
Book

Published 2022-12-01 by Triangle Square

Comments

"it's not only young adults who will get a kick out of the book. You will, too - especially if you're interested in novels and novelists; especially if you come from Indianapolis or lived through the 1960s or miss the way people used to write letters to each other. You get the idea that Mr. Wakefield's account of Vonnegut's life is funny and tender, the kind of book that will leave you bruised and happy and reverberating a little, as if you are a piano that someone has just finished playing." Read more...

The book is #1 (hardcover) and #2 (kindle) on Amazon's bestselling Teen + YA literary biographies