Título: Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel; 50th anniversary edition
Autor: Kurt Vonnegut
Sinopse: A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.”
More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel; 50th anniversary edition”, de Kurt Vonnegut, publicado pela editora Modern Library, em 1994 e com 240 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: Modern Library
Páginas: 240
Ano: 1994-02-01
Edição: 50th Anniversary ed.
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 0385312083
ISBN13: 9780385312080
Sobre a editora
A leitura dos livros da editora Modern Library costuma oferecer uma experiência que mescla narrativas densas e reflexivas com retratos históricos e literários de grande fôlego. O catálogo revela uma predileção por obras que exploram tanto a intimidade da condição humana, como poemas e romances de caráter psicológico, quanto relatos detalhados de eventos históricos, como batalhas e conflitos globais. Há uma constante atenção à complexidade das personagens e ao contexto social, seja em romances que discutem papéis femininos e lutas pessoais, seja em biografias e ensaios que iluminam momentos cruciais da história mundial. O tom varia entre o contemplativo e o dramático, com ritmo que ora privilegia o detalhamento minucioso, ora a narrativa envolvente, sem abrir mão da profundidade.
