William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno. Saroyan was born in Fresno, California, to Armenian immigrants who came to the United States from Bitlis, which was located in the Ottoman Empire. 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.
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| Birthdate: | August 31, 1908 |
| Birthplace: | Fresno, California |
| Date of death: | May 18, 1981 |
| Also known as: | Sirak Garoyan |