Kurt Vonnegut: Still Speaking To The War Weary–”LISTEN”

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136823289/kurt-vonnegut-still-speaking-to-the-war-weary

May 31, 2011

Kurt Vonnegut’s blend of anti-war sentiment and satire made him one of the most popular writers of the 1960s, a time when Vietnam dominated the headlines in a way the country’s current wars do not. On Thursday, the Library of America is republishing four novels written when Vonnegut was at his height of popularity — Cat’s Cradle; God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater;Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions.

The central theme in Vonnegut’s fiction from the 1960s is the irrationality of governments and the senseless destruction of war. In a 1987 interview, Vonnegut said he was determined to write about war without romanticizing it.