Please contact the contributing institution: The Lilly Library or Indiana University Digital Library Program
Consists mainly of correspondence between Professor Donald Mark Fiene, 1930- and author Kurt Vonnegut, 1922- regarding current activities in both of their lives and often discussing literary affairs. The letters from the 1970s concern Vonnegut's meeting with his Russian translator Rita Rait in Paris and his efforts on her behalf for honorary membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1979, together with photocopies of typed postcards signed by Arthur Miller and John Updike seconding her nomination. Other letters from Vonnegut offer advice to Fiene on his literary works, as well as comments on his own projects; discuss Fiene's family life; and relate their shared struggles with depression. The collection includes the originals of Vonnegut's letters to Fiene, and carbon or photocopies of Fiene's letters to Vonnegut.
Also present in the collection are a photograph of Vonnegut and Rait taken in Paris Oct. 28, 1972, a bumper sticker with an undated note from Vonnegut, and the photocopy of a text, "First meeting," by Fiene that was published in Happy Birthday, Kurt Vonnnegut: a Festschrift for Kurt Vonnegut on his sixtieth birthday , 1982.
