Saroyan, William (1908–81),California author, whose short stories are marked by an impressionistic, rhapsodic manner, and a sentimental exaltation of characters ranging from Armenian American workers like himself to middle‐class businessmen, all somehow optimistically associated with the glory of an American dream. His impetuous and undiscriminating love for all sorts of people and situations, his very common fictionalizing of personal experience, and his ability to use what he calls the “jump‐in‐the‐river‐and‐start‐to‐swim‐immediately” type of writing al‐lowed him to produce a steady flow of short fiction, published in The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934); Inhale and Exhale (1936); Three Times Three (1936); Little Children (1937); A Native American (1938); The Trouble with Tigers (1938); Love, Here Is My Hat (1938); Peace, It's Wonderful (1939); My Name Is Aram (1940), about the exuberant experiences of some Armenian children in California; Fables (1941); Dear Baby (1944); The Whole Voyald (1956); and I Used To Believe I Had Forever, Now I'm Not So Sure (1967), composed of stories, essays, and poems.

His novels include The Human Comedy (1943), set in California and mainly about children; The Adventures of Wesley Jackson (1946), a loosely knit, whimsical account of a Saroyanesque army private's war experiences, incorporated in The Twin Adventures (1950) with The Adventures of William Saroyan, an “hour‐to‐hour chronicle of a writer at work on the writing of a novel”; Rock Wagram (1951); Mama, I Love You (1956), about a nine‐year‐old girl's fantastic theatrical life with her mother; Papa, You're Crazy (1957); Boys and Girls Together (1963), a novella about a young writer and his wife; and One Day in the Afternoon of the World (1964), a bittersweet picture of an aging author.

His many plays are also written in his own characteristic loose style and set forth views like those of his fiction. My Heart's in the Highlands (1939) is an amorphous short play illustrating the idea that worldly success means nothing and that only aspiration counts. The Time of Your Life (1939), awarded a Pulitzer Prize that Saroyan refused, is a full‐length play about people at a San Francisco waterfront bar, whose basic virtue is revealed when a wealthy drunk gives them money to pursue their hopes and dreams. Other plays include Love's Old Sweet Song (1941), a farce comedy; The Beautiful People (1941), with a theme like that of The Time of Your Life, and included with Sweeney in the Trees and Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning in Three Plays (1941); Razzle‐Dazzle (1942), short plays; Get Away Old Man (1944), about a young writer in Hollywood; Jim Dandy, Fat Man in a Famine (1947), symbolizing Saroyan's conception of brotherly love; Don't Go Away Mad (1949); and The Cave Dwellers (1958), a fantasy set in New York.

The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952) is an autobiographical work, and he wrote more in this vein and less fiction as he grew older, but his recollections are also very creative. They include Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who (1962); Not Dying (1963); Short Drive, Sweet Chariot (1966), musings and a conversation while driving across the U.S.; Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon (1970); Places Where I've Done Time (1972); Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang In Forever (1976); Chance Meetings (1978); and Obituaries (1979), digressive recollections of deceased celebrities with reflections on death and life.

William Saroyan

The skill of William Saroyan (1908-1981), American short-story writer, dramatist, and novelist, in evoking mood and atmosphere was noteworthy, and his imaginary world, peopled with common men, was warm and compelling.

William Saroyan was born in Fresno, California, on August 31, 1908, the son of Armenian immigrants. After his father's death in 1911, William spent four years in an orphanage. Selling newspapers at the age of eight, he attended public schools in Fresno until, as he said, "I had been kicked out of school so many times that I finally left for good when I was fifteen."

In 1928 Saroyan decided to become a writer, but it was 1934 before his short stories began appearing consistently in major magazines. His first book was The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories (1934). At this time he concentrated on short stories. Seven collections appeared, from Inhale and Exhale (1936) to My Name Is Aram (1940). The works centered on memories of San Francisco and Fresno and show his joy in living. My Name Is Aram was particularly lyrical.

From 1939 through 1943 Saroyan was among America's most active playwrights. In My Heart's in the Highlands (1939) he departed from the current dramatic practice, for he believed that "it is folly for emotionality to be prolonged as a means by which to achieve drama." Completely episodic, bonded by a tenuous mood deriving from free spirits, the play was distinctive. He created a similar piece in The Time of Your Life (1939). Awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics' Circle Award for this play, Saroyan rejected the former. Love's Old Sweet Song (1940) was less effective, but his firm grip was evident again in The Beautiful People (1941). Hello Out There (1942), atypical of Saroyan, was an effective realistic one-act play of human isolation. Another dark play, Get Away Old Man (1943), failed, but his film The Human Comedy (1943) won an Academy Award.

During World War II Saroyan served in the Army. In 1943 he married Carol Marcus. Divorced in 1949, they remarried in 1951 and were again divorced in 1952. Although he continued to write plays, his work was mainly novels, autobiographies, film and television scripts, short stories, and even songs. His most praised novels are The Human Comedy (1943), The Assyrian (1950), Tracy's Tiger (1951), The Laughing Matter (1953), and Mama I Love You (1956). He also wrote I Used To Believe I Had Forever, Now I'm Not So Sure (1968); Escape to the Moon (1970); and The Tooth and My Father (1974). He died on May 18, 1981 in Fresno, California.

Further Reading

Saroyan's autobiographies were The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952), Here Comes: There Goes: You Know Who (1961), Not Dying (1963), and a more extensive one, Places Where I've Done Time (1972), in which he recalled 68 key places in his life. Carol Matthau, former spouse of Saroyan, wrote about him in her memoir, Among the Porcupines (Publishing Mills, 1992). See, also, Saroyan, Aram, William Saroyan (Harcourt, 1983). A major critical work on him was Howard R. Floan, William Saroyan (1966). A major bibliographical work was David Kherdian, A Bibliography of William Saroyan, 1934-1964 (1965). Useful insights were in John Mason Brown, Broadway in Review (1940); Brooks Atkinson, Broadway Scrapbook (1947); and George Jean Nathan, The Magic Mirror: Selected Writings on the Theatre (1960). □

Saroyan, William (1908–81), playwright. The eccentric, spirited author was born in Fresno, California, where his Armenian parents were fruit farmers and where he worked at odd jobs before gaining fame as a short‐story writer. He came to playgoers' attention with My Heart's in the Highlands (1939) but became famous with his much lauded The Time of Your Life (1939), which won the Pulitzer Prize, although Saroyan noisily rejected it. His later works included Love's Old Sweet Song (1940); The Beautiful People (1941); Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning and Talking to You (1942); Hello, Out There (1942); Get Away Old Man (1943); and The Cave Dwellers (1957). Wolcott Gibbs called the writer “the most completely undisciplined talent in American letters,” and Brooks Atkinson, in a preface to Saroyan's published plays, noted, “When he writes out of general relish, usually in isolated scenes, [he] is at his best and made a definite contribution to the mood of these times, [but] when he permits himself to discuss ideas he can write some of the worst nonsense that ever clattered out of a typewriter.” Biography: A Daring Young Man, John Leggett, 2002.

William Saroyan , 1908–81, American author, b. Fresno, Calif. Of Armenian background and extremely prolific, he created works that combine optimism, sentimentality, and a rhapsodic love of country. These include plays such as The Time of Your Life (1939; Pulitzer Prize), My Heart's in the Highlands (1939), and The Cave Dwellers (1957); novels, including The Human Comedy (1942; he won a 1943 Academy Award for the screenplay he adapted from the book) and Boys and Girls Together (1963); short-story volumes, notably The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), his first published book, and My Name is Aram (1940); and such autobiographical works as Here Comes, There Goes You Know Who (1961) and Places Where I've Done Time (1972). Saroyan fell out of fashion in the post–World War II era and, although he continued to produce masses of manuscripts, he never again captured wide popular attention.

Bibliography: See memoir by V. Samuelian (1985); biographies by L. Lee and B. Gifford (1984) and J. Leggett (2002); studies by D. S. Calonne (1983), E. H. Foster (1984), and N. Balakian (1998).

Saroyan, William (1908–81) US novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist. Saroyan followed the success of his first play, My Heart's in the Highlands (1939), with the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life (1939) and the autobiographical My Name is Aram (1940). His subsequent works were less successful, although The Cave Dwellers (1957) received some critical acclaim.