Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. The author of classics such as Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five was still writing and nailing it up until his last days. If you happen to trawl through the 'Pish archives you'll see that we've quoted from him more than once. We've even refrenced his work in a YOMG sketch.

This is one of my favourite quotes and very apt.

"Writing allows mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into intelligence."

"He's the closest thing we've had to Voltaire," Tom Wolfe, told Bloomberg News Service. "It's a sad day for the literary world."

There is a good feature on him on the BBC's h2g2 site.

There's a good post on the Guardian Books Blog with a few good comments after it.

This is a 37 minute interview with Vonnegut on the virtual on-line community Second Life.



This is the first part of an Arena special on Vonnegut. After you've watched it click on it for the remaining parts.