“Slaughterhouse-Five: A novel (1969) by the US writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922-2007), drawing on his experience of witnessing, as a prisoner of war, the Allied destruction of Dresden by fire bombs during the Second World War. The framework of the book concerns Billy Pilgrim, who is transported by aliens through a time warp, enabling him to witness events in the past of which he has foreknowledge. So it is that, with other US prisoners, he finds himself shut up in a slaughterhouse (Slaughterhouse-Five) in Dresden when the city is bombed. An interesting film version (1972) was directed by George Roy Hill.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
