Acclaimed Author Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84

One of the most influential writers of the 20^th century, Kurt Vonnegut has died after suffering from brain injuries after a fall in his home several weeks ago.

Vonnegut's most notable works include the novels Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle and many distinguished short stories and essays.

The World War II veteran pulled from a painful past and harrowing war experiences to fuel his writing. While often using sci-fi imagery to spread his tales, Vonnegut created odd stories that deliberately attacked social issues and promoted a freethinking approach to human life.

Early in his career critics largely ignored is work. His novels began to earn cult classic status by the early 1960s and particularly during the Vietnam War. Slaughterhouse-Five was an absurd novel that drew directly from Vonnegut's experiences as a WWII POW and quickly caught the attention of the Vietnam counterculture. Some of his writing was banned for proposed obscenity, only stoking his image as a freethinking champion of rational thought and an opponent of censorship.

Vonnegut frequently tackled cultural and society issues. The American Humanist Association, an organization dedicated to scientific skepticism, gave him the status of honorary president.

Many consider Cat's Cradle to be his most accomplished work. The humorous tale takes on the apocalypse and uses black comedy, original wit and an incredible imagination to craft a book that remains required reading for anyone who stepped foot in a college dorm.

Vonnegut was a hardened critic of his own work. The indignities or old age were frequent topics of his interviews. Nobody cares for an aging counterculture icon with an apartment in Manhattan. Depression was a lifelong battle for Vonnegut. An early death seemed to be the appropriate one for a satirist.

Late in his life Vonnegut retired from novel writing but still published many nonfiction articles and essays. His most recent success was the 2005 collection of essays, A Man without a Country, which landed on best-seller lists.

Kurt Vonnegut is survived by his second wife, photographer Jill Krementz, his three daughters, an adopted daughter, and his sister's three children who he adopted after she died.

Friends and associates express warm admiration for a man who always made them laugh and who always questioned authority with his counterculture writing.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," said Vonnegut in an interview with the Associated Press.