2.  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.[1]

 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

3. Saroyan has 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.[2]
In 1943, Saroyan married actress Carol Marcus (1924–
2003; also known as Carol Grace), with whom he had
two children, Aram, who became an author and
published a book about his father, and Lucy, who
became an actress.[3] 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 were remarried briefly in
1951 and divorced again in 1952 with Marcus later
claiming in her autobiography, Among the
Porcupines: A Memoir,[4][5] that Saroyan was abusive.
Carol subsequently married actor Walter Matthau.
Saroyan died in Fresno, of prostate cancer at age 72.
Half of his ashes were buried in California and the
remainder in Armenia at Komitas Pantheon near film
director Sergei Parajanov.[6]

4.  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 is a young, starving writer who
tries to survive in a Depression-ridden society.
 Through the air on the flying trapeze, his mind
hummed. Amusing it was, astoundingly funny.
A trapeze to God, or to nothing, a flying
trapeze to some sort of eternity; he prayed
objectively for strength to make the flight with
grace.
 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.

5. 1)My Heart's in the Highlands (1938)
2)The Time Of Your Life (1939) - winner of the New York
3)Drama Critics' Award and the Pulitzer Prize
4)Hello Frankie!
5Jim Dandy
6)Beautiful People
7)Cave Dwellers