A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut

Seven Stories Press, Jan 4, 2011 - Literary Collections - 160 pages

A Man Without a Country is Kurt Vonnegut’s hilariously funny and razor-sharp look at life ("If I die—God forbid—I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, ‘Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?"), art ("To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."), politics ("I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq and he said, ‘Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.’"), and the condition of the soul of America today ("What has happened to us?").
Based on short essays and speeches composed over the last five years and plentifully illustrated with artwork by the author throughout, A Man Without a Country gives us Vonnegut both speaking out with indignation and writing tenderly to his fellow Americans, sometimes joking, at other times hopeless, always searching.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Tytania - LibraryThing

Kurt Vonnegut is really special. He wrote this little slice of his life in 2005, two years before that life would end. "I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - KurtWombat - LibraryThing

I believe everyone should read Kurt Vonnegut. I also believe that if you read him at only one time in your life, it should be when you are young. Most of the Vonnegut I have read was before or well ...

Contents

• 3: 23
• 4: 39
• Okay now lets have some fun: 47
• have been called a Luddite: 55
• turned eightytwo on November 11: 65
• 8: 79
• 9: 95
• A sappy woman from Ypsilanti: 105
• 11: 115
• 12: 125
• Requiem: 137

About the author

Born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, KURT VONNEGUT was one of the few grandmasters of modern American letters. Called by the New York Times “the counterculture’s novelist,” his works guided a generation through the miasma of war and greed that was life in the U.S. in second half of the 20th century. After a stints as a soldier, anthropology PhD candidate, technical writer for General Electric, and salesman at a Saab dealership, Vonnegut rose to prominence with the publication of Cat’s Cradle in 1963. Several modern classics, including Slaughterhouse-Five, soon followed. Never quite embraced by the stodgier arbiters of literary taste, Vonnegut was nonetheless beloved by millions of readers throughout the world. “Given who and what I am,” he once said, “it has been presumptuous of me to write so well.” Kurt Vonnegut died in New York in 2007.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Man Without a Country
• Author: Kurt Vonnegut
• Editor: Daniel Simon
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press, 2011
• ISBN: 1583227903, 9781583227909
• Length: 160 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Literary Figures; History / United States / 20th Century; Literary Collections / Essays