Biography
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William Saroyan (/səˈrɔɪ.ən/; Armenian: Ուիլյամ Սարոեան; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American dramatist and author. He was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, while in 1943 he won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film adaptation of his novel The Human Comedy. The setting of many of his stories and plays is his native Fresno, the center of Armenian immigrant life in California. Some of his best-known works are The Time of Your Life, My Name Is Aram and My Heart's in the Highlands.
Stephen Fry stated that "He is one of the most underrated writers of the [20th] century. He takes his place naturally alongside Hemingway, Steinbeck and Faulkner."
Early years
William Saroyan was born on August 31, 1908 in Fresno, California to Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan, Armenian immigrants from Bitlis, Ottoman Empire. His father came to New York in 1905 and started preaching in Armenian Apostolic churches.
At the age of three, after his father's death, Saroyan, along with his brother and sister, was placed in an orphanage in Oakland, 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, Takoohi, 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 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.
