Slaughterhouse Five
Thursday 8 November 2007 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
An exploration of the cultural legacy of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
Vonnegut tells the story of GI Billy Pilgrim, focusing on Pilgrim's experience of the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden during the Second World War, which was largely based on the author's witness of the raids as a prisoner of war.
On publication in 1969, the novel was labelled both as science fiction and a political trigger to re-evaluating the carpet bombing of German cities.
Playlist
Slaughterhouse 5
Slaughterhouse 5 was one of the definitive books of the Sixties. It revelled in its cultural promiscuity, twisted the novel into a brand new shape and tickled its audience pink.
It's author, Kurt Vonnegut, died last April. He and his book are celebrated in this Night Waves Landmark.
Matthew Sweet talks to the writers, Michael Moorcock and Scarlett Thomas, the historian, Frederick Taylor and the critics, Christopher Bigsby and Jerome Klinkowitz as they set out to explore in no particular order - Dresden, Tralfamadore and the post Vonnegutian galaxy.
