William Saroyan (also known as Sirak Goryan) was born in Fresno, California, on August 31, 1908. He was the fourth child of Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan, who fled their native Armenia to escape ethnic persecution. Armenak, a Presbyterian minister, died only a few years after Saroyan's birth, leaving Takoohi, with her limited English and job skills, to support the family. She sent her children to an Oakland orphanage for four years, until she could provide for them.

While in school, Saroyan worked as a newspaper boy, and after he dropped out of high school, he worked various jobs, including a job as a telegram messenger. In 1926, Saroyan moved to San Francisco to pursue a career in writing. In 1934, he published his short-story collection The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze to rave reviews; by the late thirties, he had a national reputation as a fiction writer. Saroyan...