William Saroyan

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William Saroyan
Signature of William Saroyan

William Saroyan (born August 31, 1908 in Fresno , California , † May 18, 1981 ibid) was an American writer of Armenian origin.

Life

Saroyan was one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. The son of Armenian immigrants from Bitlis , Turkey, began his career as a writer with short stories that appeared between 1928 and 1936. Because of these stories, he was hired as a screenwriter at Columbia Pictures . In addition to working on scripts, he continued to write prose and plays , which were particularly popular during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Most of his stories were about growing up as the son of Armenian immigrants.

William Saroyan received the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of your Life and an Academy Award (Oscar) for the screenplay for the film The Human Comedy . In 1943 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters . He was married twice to the actress Carol Grace (1924-2003), the future wife of Walter Matthau , with whom he had two children: Aram Saroyan (born 1943 in New York City , lives in Los Angeles ), he was later also a well-known author, and Lucy Saroyan (1946-2003), she became an actress.

The Armenian director Lusin Dink made her first feature film about his life, the docudrama Saroyan Ülkesi (international title SaroyanLand ) published in 2012 .

Works (selection)

  • The Third day after Christmas (short story, 1926)
  • The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (short story collection, 1934)
  • The Time of Your Life (1939, comedy)
  • My Name is Aram (collection of short stories, 1940)
    • My name is aram . Translated from the English by Hans Zbinden, Europaverlag 1979
  • My Heart's in the Highlands (Drama, 1941)
  • The Human Comedy (novel, 1943)
    • Human comedy. Novel. Translated from the English by Justinian Frisch , Querido 1943
  • Rock Wagram (novel, 1951)
  • Tracy's Tiger (short story, 1951)
    • Tracy's tiger . Translated from the English by Helmut M. Braem, Diana Verlag 1953
  • Papa You're Crazy (Roman, 1957)
    • ... said my father . Translated from the English by Elisabeth Mann Borgese . Illustrated by Kurt Wirth, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1959
    • Well papa . Novel. Translated from the English by Nikolaus Stingl . Illustrated by Katharina Netolitzky, dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 2019
  • Sons Come & Go, Mothers Hang In Forever (short stories, 1976)
    • Sons come and go, mothers stay behind . Translated from the English by Traute Lunow, Europa Verlag, Vienna 1977
  • Chance Meetings (short stories, 1978)
    • Friends and other people . Translated from the English by Gabriele Redden, Limes Verlag 1979
  • Where I come from the people are friendly. Stories . Translated from the English by Nikolaus Stingl. With an afterword by Richard Kämmerlings , dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 2017 [compilation of stories from the years 1934–1950]

Filmography

Web links

Commons : William Saroyan  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members: William Saroyan. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 24, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Saroyan, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Fresno , California
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1981
Place of death Fresno , California