Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most popular American writers and social critics in the 1960s known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he wrote mainly novels, short stories, but also plays and nonfiction works. The  first commercially successful novel was Slaughterhouse-Five published in 1969. Here Vonnegut remembers his experience from the Second World War with a strong anti-war sentiment that resonated with his readers amidst the ongoing Vietnam War.
In all of his books, Vonnegut presents a unique look on humanity and its destiny which is rooted in man himself. He disregards religious beliefs and the pursuit of scientific absolute knowledge equally because neither is truly contributing to the well-being of societies. He rather emphasizes the importance of humanitarian moral values, the value of uncritical love and a sense of belonging somewhere. He questions the incomprehensible ways we come up with to divide and hurt each other. In the novel Cat's Cradle (1963) he unifies people into groups called karass. A karass consists of people 'we find by accident, but stick with by choice'. These groups ignore the senseless national, institutional, familial, religious, and class boundaries, rather celebrate anybody who appears in our life and influences us in any way.
Vonnegut believes that writers can influence people's ideas profoundly. In many lectures he talks about his theory of storytelling consisting of the shape of stories. He comes to the conclusion that we don't know enough about life to know what the good news is and what the bad news is, therefore we are unable to predict how events will empact us in the long term.
Enjoy one of his lectures or learn more about Kurt Vonnegut and his works.