William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''The Human Comedy''. When the studio rejected his original 240-page treatment, he turned it into a novel, '' The Human Comedy.'' Saroyan is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Saroyan wrote extensively about the Armenian immigrant life in California. Many of his stories and plays are set in his native Fresno. Some of his best-known works are ''

The Time of Your Life ''The Time of Your Life'' is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened on Broadway in 1939. Ch ...

'', '' My Name Is Aram'' and '' My Heart's in the Highlands''. His two collections of short stories from the 1930s, ''Inhale Exhale'' (1936) and ''The Daring Young Man On the Flying Trapeze'' (1941) are regarded as among his major achievements and essential documents of the cultural history of the period on the American West Coast. He has been described in a

Dickinson College , mottoeng = Freedom is made safe through character and learning , established = , type = Private liberal arts college , endowment = $645.5 million (2022) , president = Jo ...

news release as "one of the most prominent literary figures of the mid-20th century" and by Stephen Fry as "one of the most underrated writers of the 0thcentury." Fry suggests that "he takes his place naturally alongside Hemingway,

Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...

and

Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

". Kurt Vonnegut has said that Saroyan was "the first and still the greatest of all the American minimalists.”

Biography

Early years

William Saroyan was born on August 31, 1908, in

Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

, to Armenak and Takuhi Saroyan, Armenian immigrants from

Bitlis Bitlis ( hy, Բաղեշ '; ku, Bidlîs; ota, بتليس) is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Bitlis Province. The city is located at an elevation of 1,545 metres, 15 km from Lake Van, in the steep-sided valley of the Bitlis R ...

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

. His father came to New York in 1905 and started preaching in

Armenian Apostolic church , native_name_lang = hy , icon = Armenian Apostolic Church logo.svg , icon_width = 100px , icon_alt = , image = Էջմիածնի_Մայր_Տաճար.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , a ...

es. At the age of three, after his father's death, Saroyan, along with his brother and sister, was placed in an orphanage in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

, California. He later went on to describe his experience in the orphanage in his writings. Five years later, the family reunited in Fresno, where his mother, Takuhi, had already secured work at a cannery. He continued his education on his own, supporting himself with jobs, such as working as an office manager for the San Francisco Telegraph Company. Saroyan decided to become a writer after his mother showed him some of his father's writings. A few of his early short articles were published in '' Overland Monthly''. His first stories appeared at the end of the 1920s. Among these was "The Broken Wheel", written under the name Sirak Goryan and published in the Armenian journal '' Hairenik'' in 1933. Many of Saroyan's stories were based on his childhood experiences among the Armenian-American fruit growers of the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

or dealt with the rootlessness of the immigrant. The short story collection ''My Name is Aram'' (1940), an international bestseller, was about a young boy and the colorful characters of his immigrant family. It has been translated into many languages.

Career

As a writer, Saroyan made his breakthrough in '' Story'' magazine with " The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1934), the title taken from the nineteenth-century song of the same title. The protagonist — a young, starving writer who tries to survive in a Depression-ridden society — resembles the penniless writer in

Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective ...

's 1890 novel '' Hunger'', but lacks the anger and nihilism of Hamsun's narrator. The story was republished in a collection whose royalties enabled Saroyan to travel to Europe and Armenia, where he learned to love the taste of Russian cigarettes, once observing, "You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself" (from ''Not Dying'', 1963). His advice to a young writer was: "Try to learn to breathe deeply; really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell." Saroyan endeavored to create a prose style full of zest for life and seemingly impressionistic, that came to be called "Saroyanesque". Saroyan's stories of the period characteristically devote an unvarnished attention to the trials and tribulation, social malaise and despair of the Depression. He worked rapidly, hardly editing his text, and drinking and gambling away much of his earnings. William Saroyan

Saroyan published essays and memoirs, in which he depicted the people he had met on travels in the Soviet Union and Europe, such as the playwright

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

, the Finnish composer

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

, and

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...

. In 1952, Saroyan published ''The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills'', the first of several volumes of memoirs. Several other works were drawn from his own experiences, although his approach to autobiographical fact contained a fair bit of poetic license. Drawn from such deeply personal sources, Saroyan's plays often disregarded the convention that conflict is essential to drama. ''My Heart's in the Highlands'' (1939), his first play, a comedy about a young boy and his Armenian family, was produced at the Guild Theatre in New York. He is probably best remembered for his play ''

'' (1939), set in a waterfront saloon in San Francisco. It won a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

, which Saroyan refused on the grounds that commerce should not judge the arts; he did accept the New York Drama Critics' Circle award. The play was adapted into a 1948 film starring

James Cagney James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He ...

. Before the war, Saroyan had worked on the screenplay of ''Golden Boy'' (1939), based on Clifford Odets's play, but he never had much success in Hollywood. A second screenplay, '' The Human Comedy'' (1943) is set in the fictional California town of Ithaca in the

(based on Saroyan's memories of Fresno, California), where young

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

messenger Homer bears witness to the sorrows and joys of life during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Having hired Saroyan to write the MGM screenplay, Louis B. Mayer balked at its length, but Saroyan would not compromise and was removed from directing the project. He then turned the script into a novel, publishing it just prior to the release of the film, for which he won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Story. The novel is often credited as the source for the movie, when in fact the reverse is true. The novel was itself the basis for a 1983 musical of the same name. After his disappointment with the '' Human Comedy'' film project, he never permitted Hollywood screen adaptations of any of his novels, despite his often dire financial straits. Saroyan Portrait2ab

Saroyan served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

during

and was stationed in

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeas ...

, spending much of his time at the Lombardy Hotel in Manhattan, far from Army personnel. In 1942, he was posted to London as part of a film unit. He narrowly avoided a court martial when his novel, ''The Adventures of Wesley Jackson'', was seen as advocating

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace camp ...

. Interest in Saroyan's novels declined after the war, when he was criticized for sentimentality. Freedom, brotherly love, and universal benevolence were for him basic values, but critics considered his

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ...

as out of step with the times which, in their view, were properly described as devoted to division, ethnic and ideological hatred, and universal predation. He still wrote prolifically, so that one of his readers could ask "How could you write so much good stuff and still write such bad stuff?" In the novellas ''The Assyrian and other stories'' (1950) and in ''The Laughing Matter'' (1953), Saroyan mixed allegorical elements within a realistic novel. The plays ''Sam Ego's House'' (1949) and ''The Slaughter of the Innocents'' (1958) were not as successful as his prewar plays. Many of Saroyan's later plays, such as ''The Paris Comedy'' (1960), ''The London Comedy'' (1960), and '' Settled Out of Court'' (1960), premiered in Europe. Manuscripts of a number of unperformed plays are now at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

with his other papers. When

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

learned that Saroyan had made fun of the controversial non-fiction work '' Death in the Afternoon'', Hemingway responded: "We've seen them come and go — good ones too, better ones than you, Mr. Saroyan." One of Saroyan's most financially successful ventures was perhaps his most unlikely: the song " Come On-a My House," which became a huge hit in 1951 for singer

Rosemary Clooney Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 – June 29, 2002) was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the song " Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as " Botch-a-Me", " Mambo Italiano" ...

. Saroyan wrote the song in 1939 with his cousin

Ross Bagdasarian Ross S. Bagdasarian (; January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972), known professionally by his stage name David Seville, was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor, best known for creating the cartoon band Alvin and the Chipmun ...

(who later became famous as " David Seville," the impresario behind

Alvin and the Chipmunks Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks or simply The Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three ...

), adapting the music from an Armenian folk song. Saroyan also painted. He said: "I made drawings before I learned how to write. The impulse to do so seems basic — it is both the invention and the use of language." His

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of th ...

works were exhibited by the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City. From 1958 on, William Saroyan mainly resided in a Paris apartment. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Saroyan earned more money and finally got out of debt. In 1979, he was inducted into the

American Theater Hall of Fame The American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City was founded in 1972. Earl Blackwell was the first head of the organization's Executive Committee. In an announcement in 1972, he said that the new ''Theater Hall of Fame'' would be located in the ...

. The Indian educational board CBSE has added a chapter of his in the grade 11 English book ''Snapshots'' named "The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse" in his honour.

Personal life

Saroyan had a correspondence with writer Sanora Babb that began in 1932 and ended in 1941, that grew into an unrequited love affair on Saroyan's part. In 1943, Saroyan married actress Carol Grace (1924–2003; also known as Carol Marcus), with whom he had two children: Aram, who became an author and published a book about his father, and Lucy, who became an actress. By the late 1940s, Saroyan's drinking and gambling took a toll on his marriage, and in 1949, upon returning from an extended European trip, he filed for divorce. They remarried in 1951 and divorced again in 1952 with Marcus later claiming in her autobiography, ''Among the Porcupines: A Memoir'', that Saroyan was

abusive Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...

. After her divorce from Saroyan, Carol Grace (Marcus) married actor Walter Matthau in 1959, and they remained married until his death in 2000. Saroyan died in Fresno, of prostate cancer at the age of 72. Half of his ashes were buried in California, and the remainder in Armenia at the Komitas Pantheon near fellow artists such as composer Aram Khachaturian, painter Martiros Saryan, and film director

Sergei Parajanov Sergei Parajanov, ka, სერგო ფარაჯანოვი, uk, Сергій Параджанов (January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was an Armenian filmmaker. Parajanov is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers t ...

Commemoration

In 2008 a monument was erected in honor of Saroyan in

Mashtots Avenue Mashtots Avenue ( hy, Մաշտոցի Պողոտա ''Mashtots'i Poghota''), known as Lenin Avenue until 1990, is an avenue in the central Kentron district of Yerevan, Armenia. The avenue starts with the Victory Bridge at the south and ends up w ...

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and i ...

(sculptor David Yerevantsi, architects Ruben Asratyan and Levon Igityan). In 2014 the city council of

approved the renaming of five streets in the historical part of the city in

Southeast Turkey The Southeastern Anatolia Region ( tr, Güneydoğu Anadolu Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous city in the region is Gaziantep. Other examples of big cities are Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Mardin and Adıyaman. It ...

. One of the 5 streets was renamed to “William Saroyan Street”. In 2015 several libraries were opened in honor of William Saroyan in the city of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

. On August 31, 2018, the William Saroyan House Museum was opened in the house where Saroyan lived for the last 17 years of his life, in the city of Fresno, the USA. The house presents photographs from different periods of his life, drawings, and covers of his books. The museum has a separate room which features a hologram of the writer. In 1991 the USA and the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

(series "Joint issue of USSR and USA. William Saroyan") issued stamps depicting William Saroyan. The Central Bank of Armenia issued a 10,000

Dram Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...

coin (''100th Birth anniversary of novelist William Saroyan'') in 2008 and a 5,000

banknote in 2018. In October 1988, a small alley in San Francisco across from City Lights Bookstore named Adler Place, was renamed William Saroyan Place in Saroyan's honor. Championed by City Lights owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the naming (along with the renaming of its twin alley across the street to " Jack Kerouac Alley") was commemorated with a gala.

Awards

In 1940 William Saroyan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his play ''The Time of Your Life','' but he refused the award. In 1943 William Saroyan received the Academy Award for his screenplay for ''The Human Comedy'', a screenplay he adapted into a novel that was published just prior to the release of the film.'' '' The 2013 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award posthumously honored Saroyan for the play ''The Time of Your Life'' and the novel ''Human Comedy''. It was presented to his granddaughter by Academy Award-winning Hollywood actor Jon Voight.

Bibliography

William Saroyan's tomb at Yerevan's Komitas Pantheon

Books

* ''The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze'' (1934) * ''Inhale and Exhale'' (1936) * ''Three Times Three'' (1936) * ''Little Children'' (1937) * ''The Trouble With Tigers'' (1938) * ''The Gay and Melancholy Flux'' (1938) * ''Love Here Is My Hat'' (1938) * ''A Native American'' (1938) * ''Peace, It's Wonderful'' (1939) * '' My Name Is Aram'' (1940) * ''Hilltop Russians in San Francisco'' (1941) * ''Saroyan's Fables'' (1941) * ''Razzle-Dazzle'' (1942) * '' The Human Comedy'' (1943) * ''Get Away Old Man'' (1944) * ''Dear Baby'' (1944) * ''The Adventures of Wesley Jackson'' (1946) * ''The Twin Adventures'' (1950) Saroyan's journal with reprint of ''Wesley Jackson'' * ''The Assyrian and Other Stories'' (1951) * ''Rock Wagram'' (1951) * ''

Tracy's Tiger ''Tracy's Tiger'' is a short novel by William Saroyan. It was first published in 1951 by Doubleday, illustrated with drawings by Henry Koerner. It appears in the short story collection "The William Saroyan Reader," first edition 1958, publishe ...

'' (1952) * ''The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills'' (1952) * ''The Laughing Matter'' (1953) * ''Love'' (1955) * ''The Whole Voyald and Other Stories'' (1956) * ''Mama I Love You'' (1956) * ''Papa You're Crazy'' (1957) * ''Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who'' (1961) ** "Gaston" (1962), short story collected in ''Madness ... '' * ''Me: A Modern Masters Book for Children'' (1963), illustrated by Murray Tinkelman * ''Not Dying'' (1963) * ''Boys and Girls Together'' (1963) * ''One Day in the Afternoon of the World'' (1964) * ''Short Drive, Sweet Chariot'' (1966) * ''I Used to Believe I Had Forever, Now I'm Not So Sure'' (1968) * ''The Man with the Heart in the Highlands and other stories'' (1968) * ''

Letters from 74 rue Taitbout ''Letters from 74 Rue Taitbout or Don't Go But If You Must Say Hello To Everybody'' is a book of short stories in the form of letters by William Saroyan. The stories often recollect meetings, relationships, observations, ask questions and wond ...

'' (1969) * ''Places Where I've Done Time'' 1972 * ''Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon'' (1973) * ''Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang In Forever'' (1976) * ''Chance Meetings'' (1978) * ''Obituaries'' (1979) * ''Births'' (1983) * ''My name is Saroyan'' (1983) * ''Madness in the Family'' (1988), collected late stories 5000 dram 2018 Obverse

Plays

* ''

'' (1939) – winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama * ''My Heart's in the Highlands'' (1939) * ''Elmer and Lily'' (1939)
Three plays
(1940): :*'' My Heart's in the Highlands'' :*''The Time of Your Life'' :* ''Love's Old Sweet Song'' * ''Love's Old Sweet Song'' * ''The Agony of Little Nations'' (1940) * ''Subway Circus'' (1940) * ''

Hello Out There ''Hello Out There!'' is a one-act play by the Armenian-American playwright William Saroyan written early in August 1941. Plot The play is set in a small Texas jail. There are two major characters, Photo-Finish and Emily, whom Saroyan refers to sim ...

'' (1941) * ''Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning'' (1941) * ''The Beautiful People'' (1941) * ''Bad Men in the West'' (1942) * ''Talking to You'' (1942) * ''Coming Through the Rye'' (1942) * ''Don't Go Away Mad'' (1947) * ''Jim Dandy'' (1947) * ''The Slaughter of the Innocents'' (1952) * ''The Oyster and the Pearl (Television Play)'' (1953) * ''The Stolen Secret'' (1954) * ''A Midsummer Daydream (Television Play)'' (1955) * ''The Cave Dwellers'' (1958) * ''Sam, The Highest Jumper Of Them All, or the London Comedy'' (1960) * '' Settled Out of Court'' (1960) * ''Hanging around the Wabash'' (1961) * ''The Dogs, or the Paris Comedy'' (1969) * ''Armenian'' (1971) * ''Assassinations'' (1974) * ''Tales from the Vienna Streets'' (1980) * ''An Armenian Trilogy'' (1986) * ''The Parsley Garden'' (1992)

Short stories

* "The Snake" * "An Ornery Kind of Kid" * "The Filipino and the Drunkard" * "Gaston" (date unknown) * "The Hummingbird That Lived Through Winter" * "Knife-Like, Flower-Like, Like Nothing At All in the World" (1942) * "The Mourner" * "The Parsley Garden" * '' The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse'' (1938)
"Seventy Thousand Assyrians"
(1934) * "The Shepherd's Daughter" * "Sweetheart Sweetheart Sweetheart" * "Third day after Christmas" (1926) * "Five Ripe Pears" (1935) * "Pomegranate Trees" (year unknown) * "Seventeen" (written during the Great Depression, in the collection of ''The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories'') * "The Barber´s Uncle"

Poem

* "Me" (''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...

'', March 9, 1963, illustrated by Murray Tinkelman)

Song

* " Come On-a My House", a hit for

, based on an Armenian folk song, written with his cousin,

, later the impresario of

. * "Eat, Eat, Eat" (words and music) sung by

Danny Kaye Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; yi, דוד־דניאל קאַמינסקי; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and ...

with the Vic Schoen OrchestraDecca matrix L 6451. Eat, eat, eat! / Danny Kaye
Discography of American Historical Recordings.

References

;Specific ;General * *

'' (2008)