There aren’t many writers who witnessed a 20th century apocalypse at first hand. But of those who have Kurt Vonnegut’s response, Slaughterhouse-Five, is arguably the most memorable. It was published in 1969, twenty-four years after Vonnegut, a 23 year-old American prisoner of war, survived the Allied firebombing of Dresden. This massive air attack, which killed 130,000 people and destroyed a city of no military significance was probably the most important thing, besides getting married and having children, which ever happened to him.
