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Kurt Vonnegut, the creator of wry science fiction and black comedy built on his experience as a World War II prisoner of war, has died at 84.
Vonnegut was the author of Slaughter-house-Five, Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1922, Vonnegut was captured inside German lines in 1945 following the Battle of the Bulge.
Confined to an underground cellar in Dresden when Allied bombers attacked the city, he was one of just seven US prisoners who survived the firestorm.
