Kurt Vonnegut

About Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007) was a highly influential American writer whose work spanned novels, short stories, and screenplays, cementing his place as a significant 20th-century literary voice. His importance, recognized by the MIT Pantheon project with an HPI Rank of #849, stems from his unique blend of dark satire, science fiction elements, and profound humanism, notably in seminal works like *Slaughterhouse-Five* and *Cat's Cradle*. His narratives often critique war, free will, and the absurdity of modern life.

Despite his historical standing, Vonnegut's modern internet attention shows an over-indexing compared to his historical importance, resulting in a +3x Attention Gap. In 2025, his Wikipedia pages accumulated 1.0M annualized views. For comparison, Isaac Asimov, another major science fiction writer ranked slightly lower at #920, commanded 1.7M views, suggesting Vonnegut's readership is slightly less engaged online than a contemporary peer in the same field. Furthermore, Vonnegut receives substantially more attention than a historically more important figure like Brutus the Younger (#392 importance), who garners only 10K views.

Examining the year-over-year trend reveals a slight cooling of recent interest, with his pageviews declining by 13.1% from the previous year. However, his short-term Q1 vs Q3 momentum shows a minor rebound of +1%, indicating his literary footprint remains active, even if slowly receding from its peak.