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William Saroyan
Sign in to saveArmenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (1908-1981)
William Saroyan was an Armenian-American writer best known for his novels, plays, and short stories during the 20th century. He remains significant in American literature for bringing Armenian-American experiences and perspectives to a wide audience through his creative work.
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Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- William
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Fresno
- Place of death
- Fresno
- Spouse
- Carol Grace
- Child
- Aram Saroyan
- Occupation
- songwriter
- Languages spoken
- Armenian
- Image
- William Saroyan.jpg
Show 12 more facts
- manner of death
- natural causes
- Commons category
- William Saroyan
- date of birth
- 1908-08-31
- date of death
- 1981-05-18
- cause of death
- prostate cancer
- place of burial
- Ararat Massis Armenian Cemetery
- nominated for
- Academy Award for Best Story
- member of
- American Academy of Arts and Letters
- start of work period
- 1934-00-00
- writing language
- English language
- relative
- Ross Bagdasarian Sr.
- copyright representative
- American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
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Encyclopedic overview
William Saroyan (/səˈrɔɪən/; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer of Armenian descent. 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 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, 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 (1934), are regarded as among his major achievements and essential documents of the cultural history of the period on the West Coast of the United States.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “William Saroyan” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.