About this item
The definitive edition of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction concludes with three brilliantly satirical novels of the 1980s and '90s collected in one volume for the first time. Here are the final three novels of the visionary master who defined a generation. Bluebeard (1987) is the colorful history of a phenomenally gifted realist painter who, in the 1950s, betrayed his artistic vision for commercial success. now, at seventy-one, he writes his memoirs and plots his revenge on the worldly forces that conspired to corrupt his talent. In Hocus Pocus (1990) , a freewheeling prison memoir by a Vietnam vet and disgraced academic, Vonnegut brings his indelible voice to a range of still-burning issues - free speech, racism, environmental calamity, deindustrialization, and globalization. Timequake (1997) , the author's last completed novel, is part science fiction yarn (starring perennial protagonist Kilgore trout) , part diary of the mid-1990s (starring the author himself) . the result is a perfect fusion of Vonnegut's two signature genres, the satirical fantasy and the personal essay, and a literary magician's fond farewell to his readers and his craft. Rounded out with a selection of short nonfiction pieces intimately related to these three works, this volume presents the final word from the artist who the San Francisco Chronicle, reviewing Timequake, called an "old warrior who will not accept the dehumanizing of politics, the blunting of conscience, and the glibness of the late-twentieth-century Western world."
About the Author
Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. He studied at the universities of Chicago and Tennessee and later began to write short stories for magazines. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951 and since then he has written many novels, among them: The Sirens of Titan (1959) , Mother Night (1961) , Cat's Cradle (1963) , God Bless You Mr Rosewater (1964) , Welcome to the Monkey House; a collection of short stories (1968) , Breakfast of Champions (1973) , Slapstick, or Lonesome No More (1976) , Jailbird (1979) , Deadeye Dick (1982) , Galapagos (1985) , Bluebeard (1988) and Hocus Pocus (1990) . During the Second World War he was held prisoner in Germany and was present at the bombing of Dresden, an experience which provided the setting for his most famous work to date, Slaughterhouse Five (1969) . He has also published a volume of autobiography entitled Palm Sunday (1981) and a collection of essays and speeches, Fates Worse Than Death (1991) .
