The books of Kurt Vonnegut, who was born 100 years ago this Friday, are funny, unflinching, soft-hearted, stark, imaginative and approachable – and just as relevant now as when he published his debut novel 70 years ago. Start on one of his best books and you’ll quickly see why he’s held in such rare affection by his fans: “Uncle Kurt,” this year’s Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka calls him.
The opening words of Vonnegut’s most famous book Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) – “All this happened, more or less” – sound like a modern manifesto for autofiction. But it’s that playful “more or less” that acknowledges both the truth of the source material – Vonnegut as a prisoner of war in Germany witnessed the Allied firebombing of Dresden in February 1945 and built this book around it – and the flights of fancy (crazy-paving structure, aliens, time travel) with which he decorated it.
