William, his brother, and two sisters were placed in an orphanage in Oakland. To be near them the children's mother took a job in San Francisco. In 1915 the family returned to Fresno.
The Saroyan family lived in relative poverty, but the boy at least knew the warmth of a close-knit Armenian community. His head was filled with dreams as he worked in the local vineyards and peddled papers. As often as he could he attended movies and vaudeville shows. They were to leave an indelible impress on his plays. The transients of the Fresno-San Francisco area fascinated him. Their hangouts became his: gambling parlors, lunch rooms, bars, barber shops. Quitting high school, he took a job as a clerk for the Postal Telegraph Company in San Francisco. He became a telegraph operator and, later, manager of a branch office. In 1929, however, as America hurtled into the Depression, William Saroyan abandoned the workaday world. With an earnestness amounting to consecration, he decided to become a writer.
The four-year period of Saroyan's gestation as a writer, 1929-1933, was fraught with loneliness, poverty, frustration, and joy--the joy of youth and hope, of long walks in the city and countless hours in the public reading room of the library.
This is a free page. This page contains 187 words. This
biography contains 3,195 words (approx. 11 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our William Saroyan Access Pass.
