The Vonnegut Collection

A man is silhouetted against the sky at dusk as he takes advantage of unseasonably warm weather to walk his dog Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, in Overland Park, Kansas.

A collection of appearances and discussions about the writer Kurt Vonnegut and Vonnegut family members over WNYC in years past. These include his series, Reporter on the Afterlife, as well as interviews for The Reader's Almanac and other programs.

Stories

Kurt and Bernard Vonnegut in the House of Magic

Kurt Vonnegut joined his brother, Bernard, at General Electric in the late 1940s. Bernard was a scientist working on cutting-edge weather-control technologies while Kurt worked in G.E...
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Kurt Vonnegut Talks to the Dead

A reprise of Vonnegut's Reporter on the Afterlife with producer Marty Goldensohn.
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Kurt Vonnegut: "Fates Worse Than Death"

His edgy 1982 “sermon” took on the question of whether hydrogen bombs would deliver us from more terrifying circumstances. The full audio recording is now available for the first time.
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Vonnegut on Deadeye Dick, a Story of "Gun Nuts and Nukes"

In this archival interview, the famed author defends his fiction against critics who pan his writing, comparing his detractors to “circus geeks” who “bite the heads off chickens.
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Kurt Vonnegut on Jailbird, His Watergate Novel

Kurt Vonnegut tells us why he abandoned the sketchy sci-fi plot lines in favor of a sharp-eyed political realism of what has come to be known as his “Watergate novel,” Jailbird.
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Kurt Vonnegut and L.J. Davis and the Novelist's Relationship to Community

This May 1, 1978 interview was the third Vonnegut had with Walter James Miller.
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Kurt Vonnegut on Slapstick, His Sci-Fi Family Novel

Vonnegut talks about his strange sci-fi tale of fraternal twins who are brilliant when they can interact with each other but only “dull normal” when separated. He reveals that his por...
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Kurt Vonnegut on Breakfast of Champions

Vonnegut is at the top of his game—confidently proclaiming the novelist’s ability to “make up new myths that people will believe.”
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The complete Vonnegut interviews, 1973-1983

Miller and Vonnegut were good friends.
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Aha Moment: Jon Ronson on Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is a serious writer who holds a special place in the hearts of teenagers. Jon Ronson got hooked on Vonnegut when he was 15. For his long train rides from Cardiff, Wales,...
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Kurt Vonnegut: WNYC Reporter on the Afterlife

An opportunity to catch Vonnegut's keen observational skills as a reporter from a distant place, where neither before, nor since, WNYC has had a stringer.
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Kurt Vonnegut in Retrospect

Kurt Vonnegut’s son, Mark Vonnegut, talks about his father’s life and work. Armageddon in Retrospect is a new collection of twelve unpublished writings of Kurt Vonnegut on war and peace.
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Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut shares his first book since 1999, A Man Without a Country with Leonard Lopate.
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Kurt Vonnegut - How Television Has Corrupted Reality

Kurt Vonnegut writer delivers his monologue on how TV has corrupted reality on the Brian Lehrer show.
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Cities of the Present and the Future

WNYC architecture critic David Lowe talks with environmental attorney Eric Goldstein, novelist Kurt Vonnegut, and, urban sociologist William H. Whyte. ...
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