William Saroyan
William Saroyan, 1940
Born	August 31, 1908 Fresno, California
Died	May 18, 1981 Fresno, California
Occupation	novelist, playwright, short story writer,
Nationality	Armenian-American
Writing period	1934-1980

William Saroyan (Armenian: Վիլյամ Սարոյան, IPA: [/wiljɑm sɑɾojan/]) (August 31, 1908, Fresno, California - May 18, 1981, Fresno, California) was an American author. The setting of many of his stories and plays was Fresno, California (sometimes under a fictional name), the center of Armenian-American life in California and where he grew up. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (2221x2800, 426 KB) (Note: high resolution version from http://memory. ... is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Fresno redirects here. ... is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... AUGUST 25 1981 US Marine Sean Vance is Born on the 25th of August {ear nav|1981}} Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... Fresno redirects here. ... This article is about work. ... In English usage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. ... An Armenian-American is a citizen of the United States who is of Armenian ancestry. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Fresno redirects here. ... is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... AUGUST 25 1981 US Marine Sean Vance is Born on the 25th of August {ear nav|1981}} Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... Fresno redirects here. ... For other uses, see Author (disambiguation). ... Fresno redirects here. ... An Armenian-American is a citizen of the United States who is of Armenian ancestry. ...

When The Literary Digest inquired about the pronunciation of his name, he replied "In Armenian it is sor-row'yan, accent on yan. In America, it is mispronounced with the accent on 'roy.'" ^[1] The Literary Digest was an influential general-interest magazine in the early 20th century United States. ...

Life

Saroyan was the son of Armenian immigrants from Bitlis, Anatolia. His father, a small vineyard owner who had been educated as a Presbyterian minister, was eventually forced to take farm-laboring work. He moved to New Jersey in 1905 and died in 1911. At the age of four, William Saroyan was placed in the Fred Finch Orphanage in Oakland, California, together with his brother and sister, an experience he later described in his writing. Five years later, the family reunited in Fresno, where his mother, Takoohi, had obtained work in a cannery. Bitlis is a city in Turkey, capital of Bitlis Province. ... This article is about two nested areas of Turkey, a plateau region within a peninsula. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ...

Saroyan learned to type in a technical school, which he left at the age of 15. He continued his education on his own, supporting himself by taking odd 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 The Overland Monthly. His first stories appeared in the 1930s. 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, 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.

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 19th century song "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze". The protagonist is a young, starving writer who tries to survive in a Depression-ridden society: The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, also known as The Man on the Flying Trapeze, is a very well-known 19th century popular song about a flying trapeze circus performer. ...

Saroyan served in the US Army during World War II. He was stationed in Astoria, Queens, 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. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Aerial view of the Triborough Bridge (left) and the Hell Gate Bridge (right) spanning Astoria Park and the Astoria Pool Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. ... Pacifist redirects here. ...

In 1943, Saroyan married Carol Marcus (1924-2003) who was 18 at the time; they had two children, Aram Saroyan and the late Lucy. By the late 40s, Saroyan's increasing drinking and gambling had taken a toll on his marriage, and he filed for divorce upon returning from an extended European trip. They remarried and divorced again. Lucy became an actress, and Aram became a writer who published a book about his father. Carol Marcus subsequently married the actor Walter Matthau. Carol Grace (September 11, 1924 - July 20, 2003), was an American actress and author; she is usually referred to as either Carol Marcus Saroyan or Carol Matthau. ... Aram Saroyan (born 1943) is an American poet, novelist, biographer, memoirist and playwright. ... Lucy Saroyan (born January 17, 1946, San Francisco, California) was an American actress. ... Walter Matthau (October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an Academy Award-winning American comedy actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with fellow Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon. ...

Saroyan worked rapidly, hardly editing his text, and drinking and gambling away much of his earnings. From 1958 on, he mainly resided in a Paris apartment.

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, the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, and Charlie Chaplin. In 1952, Saroyan published, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills, the first of several volumes of memoirs. George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was a world-renowned Irish author. ... Johan Julius Christian Jean / Janne Sibelius ( ; December 8, 1865 – September 20, 1957) was a Finnish composer of classical music and one of the most notable composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... Charles Chaplin redirects here. ... As a literary genre, a memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning memory), or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography, although it is an older form of writing. ...

In the late 1960s and the 1970s, Saroyan earned more money and finally got out of debt. He died of cancer at age 72. "Everybody has got to die," he had said, "but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case." Half of his ashes were buried in California, and the rest in Armenia. Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ...

"The Armenian and the Armenian"

Saroyan's writing is particularly renowned among his fellow Armenians, especially his stirring declaration of solidarity, "The Armenian and the Armenian", set during the Armenian Genocide in which over 1.5 million Armenians were killed. The words evoke grief, rage, resilience, and rebirth in relation to Armenian cultural and social life. A famous excerpt reads: Armenian Genocide photo. ...

Assessment

William Saroyan's stories celebrated optimism in the midst of the trials and tribulations of the Depression. Several of Saroyan's works were drawn from his own experiences, although his approach to autobiographical fact contained a fair bit of poetic license. For other uses, see The Great Depression (disambiguation). ... Cover of the first English edition of 1793 of Benjamin Franklins autobiography. ... Artistic licence or license (US), also known as dramatic license/licence, is a colloquial term used to denote the liberties an artist may take in the name of art — for example, if an artist decided it was more artistically correct to portray St. ...

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".

In some respects, Saroyan's characters resemble the penniless writer in Knut Hamsun's 1890 novel Hunger, but lack 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) Knut Hamsun (31 years old) in 1890 Knut Hamsun (August 4, 1859 – February 19, 1952) was a leading Norwegian author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1920. ... Hunger is a feeling experienced when the glycogen level of the liver falls below a threshold, usually followed by a desire to eat. ...

Saroyan's plays were drawn from deeply personal sources, and often disregarded the convention that conflict is essential to drama. My Heart's in the Highlands (1939), his first play, was a comedy about a young boy and his Armenian family. It was produced at the Guild Theatre in New York.

Saroyan is probably best remembered for his play The Time of Your Life (1939), set in a waterfront saloon in San Francisco. It won a Pulitzer Prize, 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. The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. ... The New York Drama Critics Circle is comprised of nineteen drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines, and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. ... James Francis Cagney, Jr. ...

Before the war, Saroyan worked on the screenplay of Golden Boy (1939), based on Clifford Odets's play, but he never had much success in Hollywood. Clifford Odets photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 - August 18, 1963) was an American socialist playwright, screenwriter, and social protester. ...

The Human Comedy (1943) is set in the fictional California town of Ithaca in the San Joaquin Valley (based on Saroyan's memories of Fresno, California), where young telegraph messenger Homer bears witness to the sorrows and joys of life during World War II. The Human Comedy is a novel by William Saroyan. ... For other uses, see Fiction (disambiguation). ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... The Central Valley of California The San Joaquin Valley (English pronunciation in IPA: [sæn wɑˈkin]) refers to the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Stockton. ... Fresno, a Spanish word for ash tree (from Latin fraxinus) is a common placename in Spanish speaking areas. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

Saroyan was hired to write the screenplay for and direct the film for MGM. When Louis B. Mayer balked at its length, Saroyan would not compromise and was removed from the project. He then turned the script into a novel, publishing it just prior to the film's release. This novel is often credited as the source for the movie when in fact the reverse is true. The novel is the basis for a 1983 musical of the same name. Sample from a screenplay, showing dialogue and action descriptions. ... MGM logo Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM, is a large media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of cinema and television programs. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Human Comedy is a musical with a book and lyrics by William Dumaresq and music by Galt MacDermot. ...

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 his idealism was considered out of step with the times. 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 (1969), premiered in Europe. Manuscripts of a number of unperformed plays are now at Stanford University with his other papers. A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction somewhat longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. ... Allegory of Music by Filippino Lippi. ... Stanford redirects here. ...

When Ernest Hemingway learned that Saroyan had made fun of Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway responded: "We've seen them come and go. Good ones too. Better ones than you, Mr. Saroyan." Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 — July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... Categories: Literature stubs | 1932 books | Ernest Hemingway works ...

Quotations

• "The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy - the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops." (from The William Saroyan Reader, 1958)

• "Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might. When you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

Trivia

Warren Oakes, drummer for the folk-punk band Against Me, has two tattoos on his back, based on drawings Saroyan drew to illustrate two of his stories. Oakes talks about and displays these tatoos in an interview with tasteiTTV.com, available here. Saroyan is his favorite author.

• Saroyan is refered to several times in Joseph Heller's novel Closing Time by Yossarian, who is revealed to have admired Saroyan and wanted to write like him.

Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American satirical novelist and playwright. ... Closing Time, first published in 1994, is Joseph Hellers sequel to the popular Catch-22. ... Yossarian, as portrayed by Alan Arkin Captain John Yossarian is the 28-year-old protagonist of the 1961 novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. ...

Works

• The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
• "Inhale and Exhale" (1936)
• The Trouble With Tigers (1938)
• Love Here Is My Hat (1938)
• My Name Is Aram (1940)
• The Human Comedy (1943)
• Tracy's Tiger (1951)
• The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse (1938)
• The Adventures of Wesley Jackson (1946)
• Rock Wagram (1951)
• The Laughing Matter (1953)
• Love (1955)
• Mama I Love You (1956)
• Papa You're Crazy (1957)
• Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who (1962)
• Gaston (1962)
• One Day in the Afternoon of the World (1964)
• Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon (1970)
• Places Where I've Done Time 1972 (original printing possibly 1957)
• Chance Meetings (1978)
• Obituaries (1979)
• Births (1983)
• My name is Saroyan (1983)
• An Armenian trilogy (1986)
• Madness in the family (1988)
• The Man With The Heart in the Highlands and other stories (1968)

The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, also known as The Man on the Flying Trapeze, is a very well-known 19th century popular song about a flying trapeze circus performer. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... The Human Comedy is a novel by William Saroyan. ... Tracys Tiger is a short novel by William Saroyan. ... The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse is a short novel by William Saroyan. ... For other uses, see Love (disambiguation). ... Gaston can refer to: Gaston, South Carolina The name of the Belgian comic strip featuring Gaston Lagaffe Hurricane Gaston Gaston, the name of the hunter and antagonist in Disneys Beauty and the Beast film A climbing technique named after the French alpinist Gaston Rébuffat. ... An obituary is a notice of the death of a person, usually published in a newspaper and usually including a short biography. ... Geneva Abdilla 1996 ...

Plays

• The Time of Your Life (1939) - winner of the New York Drama Critics' Award and the Pulitzer Prize
• My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)
• Elmer and Lily (1939)
• The Agony of Little Nations (1940)
• Hello Out There! (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)
• The Slaughter of the Innocents (1952)
• The Oyster And The Pearl (Television Play) (1953)
• The Stolen Secret (1954)
• The Cave Dwellers (1958)
• Hanging around the Wabash (1961)
• The Dogs, or the Paris Comedy (1969)
• Armenians (1971)
• Assassinations (1974)
• Tales from the Vienna Streets (1980)
• The Parsley Garden

This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. ... Hello-out there!, is a one act play by William Saroyan, written early in August 1941. ... Talking To You was the Danish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, performed in English by Jakob Sveistrup. ... assassin, see Assassin (disambiguation) Jack Ruby assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald in a very public manner. ...

Short Stories

• 1926, "Third day after Christmas"
• 1935, "Resurrection of a Life"
• "Gaston" (date unknown)
• "An Ornery Kind of Kid"
• "The Parsley Garden"
• "The Shepherd's Daughter"

"The Hummingbird That Lived Through Winter"

Song

• "Come On-a My House", a hit for Rosemary Clooney, based on an Armenian folk song, written with his cousin, Ross Bagdasarian, later the impresario of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Come on-a My House is a popular song, written by Ross Bagdasarian and William Saroyan in summer of 1939, but not produced until 1951. ... Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 – June 29, 2002) was an American popular singer and actress. ... Ross Bagdasarian (January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972) was an American pianist, songwriter, actor, and record producer of Armenian ethnic descent, born in Fresno, California. ... This article is about the musical group. ...

Secondary literature

• Balakian, N., 1998. The World of William Saroyan.
• Floan, H. R., 1966. William Saroyan.
• Foster, E. H., 1984. William Saroyan.
• --------, 1991. William Saroyan: A Study in the Shorter Fiction.
• Gifford, Barry, and Lee, Lawrence, 1984. Saroyan. (Paperback, 1998).
• Harmalian, Leo, ed., 1987. William Saroyan.
• Keyishan, H., 1995. Critical Esays in William Saroyan.
• Leggett, John, 2002. A Daring Young Man: A Biography of William Saroyan.
• Linde, Mauricio D. Aguilera, 2002, "Saroyan and the Dream of Success: The American Vaudeville as a Political Weapon," 11.1 (Winter): 18-31.
• Samuelian, Varaz, 1985. Willie & Varaz: Memories of My Friend William Saroyan.
• Saroyan, A., 1983. William Saroyan.
• Whitmore, Jon, 1995. William Saroyan.

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

William Saroyan

• Brief biography at Kirjasto (Pegasos).
• The William Saroyan Society.
• William Saroyan article on Armeniapedia.org.
• William Saroyan at Parajanov.com I Saw The Mighty Armenia

• • "A good dose of Saroyan is what this world needs," The San Diego Union-Tribune (6 April 1998)
• William Saroyan Literary Foundation.
• William Saroyan Page.
• Web site of the documentary film William Saroyan : The Man, The Writer, by Paul and Susie Kalinian.
• William Saroyan at the Internet Movie Database
• Fred Finch Youth Center