And so it went. American author Kurt Vonnegut, whose novel Slaughterhouse Five became cult reading and helped shape opinion against the Vietnam War, has died. He was 84.

Vonnegut, a writer's writer with a huge public following, was regarded by many critics and leading Scottish authors as a key influence in shaping 20th-century American literature. His death, announced yesterday by his photographer wife Krementz, followed brain injuries suffered in a recent fall at his Manhattan home.

Vonnegut's more than a dozen novels, his short stories, essays and plays contained elements of social commentary, science fiction and autobiography.

In books such as Slaughterhouse Five - based on his experience as a PoW in Dresden during its destruction by Allied bombing - Cat's Cradle and Hocus Pocus, Vonnegut mixed the bitter and funny with a touch of the profound. The first novel featured the signature Vonnegut phrase, "so it goes", which became a catchphrase for opponents of the war in Vietnam.

Among fellow writers to mourn his passing, Scots author AL Kennedy said he had produced three or four of the 20th century's classic novels and was still pitching in about what it meant to be human and criticising the actions of his government.

"If you read writing about writing, he really understood what it was about and what it could do. He was a great advert for humanism. Some of his science-fiction writing has proved, sadly, to be prescient," she said.

"He could tell you very terrible things in a companionable, Mark Twainish, way. Reading him, you felt like a friend was talking to you."

Norman Mailer also drew the comparison with Twain, describing Vonnegut as "a marvellous writer with a style that remained undeniably and imperturbably his own".

Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, a liberal magazine based in Chicago that featured Vonnegut articles, added: "He was a man who combined a wicked sense of humour and sort of steady moral compass, who was always looking at the big picture of the things that were most important."

Some of Vonnegut's books were banned and burned for alleged obscenity. He took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life and, in 1984, attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.