William saroyan biography summary of thomas paine

When the studio rejected his original 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. His two collections of short stories from the s, Inhale Exhale and The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze are regarded as among his major achievements and essential documents of the cultural history of the period on the American West Coast.

He has been described in a Dickinson College news release as "one of the most prominent literary figures of the midth century" [ 4 ] and by Stephen Fry as "one of the most underrated writers of the [20th] century. His father came to New York in and started preaching in Armenian Apostolic churches.

Born on February 9, ,

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. 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 at the end of the s.

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 , 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" , the title taken from the nineteenth-century song of the same title. The protagonist — a young, starving writer who tries to survive in a Depression-ridden society — resembles the penniless writer in Knut Hamsun 's novel Hunger , but lacks the anger and nihilism of Hamsun's narrator.

Through the air on the flying trapeze, his mind hummed. Amusing it was, astoundingly funny.