Book Description
William Saroyan’s gift to literature was his humanity. In his five-decades of short stories, novels, and plays, he saw exuberance where others found sorrow and lived a life that was richer and stranger than his fictions. Despite his worldwide fame and his years living in Europe, Saroyan’s mind never wandered far from the Fresno, California of his childhood, or his Armenian heritage, and Fresno is the inspiration behind most of his greatest works. The Essential Saroyan brings together the most acclaimed stories as well as a few surprises from one of California’s major writers. Beloved of Armenians everywhere and the only man to win and turn down the Pulitzer Prize, Saroyan’s legacy endures today. His work exalts the mysteries of youth, ponders the impossibility of love, speaks to this strange condition of being alive, and above all, declares that the duty of a writer is to have one hell of a good time.