Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007. He became one of the most widely read American authors of the twentieth century. He was known for writing in short, simple sentences about very complicated topics like war, technology. The meaning of life. Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the Great Depression. His family lost their money when he was young. As a soldier in World War II, he was captured by German forces and held as a prisoner of war. He survived the firebombing of Dresden, a German city that was nearly destroyed in a single night. That experience haunted him for decades. His most famous novel, *Slaughterhouse-Five*, tells the story of a soldier who experiences the bombing of Dresden. But instead of writing a straightforward war story, Vonnegut added science fiction elements. He used time travel and aliens to show how the human mind struggles to process terrible events. Every time something awful happens, the narrator simply says, "So it goes." This became one of the most recognized phrases in American literature. Vonnegut believed that humor was essential when writing about serious subjects. He once said that laughter and tears are both responses to frustration.