"Marvelously captivating." — The New York Times. First published in 1940, Saroyan's international bestseller recounts the exploits of an Armenian clan in northern California at the turn of the 20th century. Based on the author's loving and eccentric extended family, the characters in these 14 related short stories provide humorous and touching scenes from immigrant life.

He was so famous that Saroyanesque entered the vocabulary of his time, an adjective expressing the childlike sweetness, the evocation of loneliness, the innocence that characterized his work. His name was known to anyone in America who read a magazine, listened to the radio, cared about theater, or bought a book. At one time he had three plays simultaneously on Broadway, including My Heart’s in the Highlands and The Time of Your Life (which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics’ Circle Award). His first collection of stories, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, was published by Bennett Cerf when Saroyan was twenty-six years old; it was a critical and commercial success. Saroyan went to Hollywood and wrote The Human Comedy over a Christmas holiday; it became a major wartime movie and won him an Oscar for best screenplay. His writing was a mixture of old-world suffering and new-world optimism. But for all of his promise and brilliance, and his half-century struggle to reach the pantheon of American writers, his gift was not large enough to sustain him. Now, in this full-scale biography, John Leggett gives us Saroyan whole, from the immigrant boy and his lonely orphanage years to the internationally acclaimed American writer. Here is the all-encompassing story —the fun, the follies, the lights, and the shadows of his life. Leggett writes about Saroyan’s roller-coaster courtship and two marriages to the beautiful Carol Marcus (she was seventeen and he thirty-four when they met); about his relationships with his publishers and with his long-time agent, Hal Matson; about his friendships with Budd Schulberg, Irwin Shaw, George Jean Nathan, and others, and the many productions (on Broadway and off) of Saroyan’s plays. He writes about Saroyan’s constant struggle with his addictions to gambling and extravagant living . . . his disappointments as a writer and his undiminished belief in his own talent, a belief that it would prevail, no matter how many colleagues turned away from his excesses and his demands. Drawing on interviews and on Saroyan’s letters, notes, and diaries, John Leggett, author of Ross and Tom (“A great book”—Leon Edel), gives us a revealing portrait of the man and the writer whose work charmed and touched the heart of mid-twentieth-century America.

An illustrated compilation of critical essays, intimate recollections, biographical notes, and interviews which sheds new light on the life and work of Pulitzer Prize winner William Saroyan (1913-81). Reflections by his son and daughter and a candid interview with Garig Basmadjian reveal the intimate side of the talented celebrity trying to cope with his human weakness.

Eleven of William Saroyan's most delightful tales, Fresno Stories springs straight from the source of the author's vision--"the archetypal Armenian families who inhabit Saroyan country, in and around Fresno, California." (Chicago Tribune)

Once upon a time there was only one word — me. If you wanted to say here I am, you said — me. It was the only word anyone ever heard! But only people said me. Dogs said bark, bark, take me to the park; cats said purr, purr, I am the Queen be kind to her; cows said moo, moo, I am a cow, what are you? But slowly, change came, and in his first children's book, Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist William Saroyan spins a fanciful fable that speculates on how members of the human race actually started talking to each other. Recounted with catchy rhymes and a spirited simplicity, this story is illustrated with lively pictures that glow with the warmth of watercolors. An internationally renowned writer, playwright, and humanitarian, William Saroyan wrote short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. His tale of Me is illustrated by Murray Tinkelman, whose art has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other prominent publications. Their charming children's story has been out of print for decades but now returns to circulation in this vibrant new edition.

The son of the late William Saroyan describes his father's struggle against cancer and the family's attempts to become closer to the dying writer.

When Evan Nazarenus returns from a teaching post at the summer school in Nebraska, he cannot wait for a couple of blissful weeks spent with his wife and two children in Clovis, a small town where his brother has a summer house. But soon after they arrive for the long awaited holiday, Swan, Evan's wife, announces that she is expecting a child ... who is not fathered by Evan. This news shocks and hurts Evan deeply, but for his children's sake he decides to keep it to himself through the holidays they dreamt of for so long. But a family secret of such calibre is difficult to hide and the curious small-town neighbours begin to notice that something is amiss with the couple. The Laughing Matter, first published in 1953, is a disturbing family drama set against the landscape of a small Californian town, with a close-knit community who embrace new-comers with the curiosity of those hungry for gossip. William Saroyan draws his characters with immense sensitivity for human erring and self-inflicted suffering.