Kurt Vonnegut, 84, the author of such classic satirical sci-fi novels as “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle,” and “Breakfast of Champions,” died yesterday.

His wife, photographer Jill Krementz, said Vonnegut had suffered brain injuries after a recent fall at his New York City home.

Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis. He wrote at least 19 novels as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays.

“I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,” Vonnegut once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

He had been retired from fiction writing in recent years, though he continued to publish short articles and, in fact, had a best-seller with 2005′s “A Man Without a Country,” a collection of nonfiction.

Vonnegut once quipped that of all the ways to die, he’d like to go out in a plane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.