10-17-18 Bernie Talks and Shares Writings of one of his Favorite Authors: William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an internationally renowned Armenian-American writer, playwright and humanitarian. His fame, and his most enduring achievements as a writer, date from the 1930’s. He dazzled, entertained and uplifted millions, with hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs and essays; they continue to charm and touch us today.
Saroyan’s talent was first projected to the world through the medium of an Armenian-English newspaper, Hairenik of Boston. In 1934, at the age of 26, with the publication of his first book The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, William Saroyan became an overnight literary sensation. His first successful Broadway play was My Heart’s in the Highlands in 1939, and in the same year, Saroyan was the first American writer to win both the Drama Critic’s Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play, The Time of Your Life. He refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that, “Commerce should not patronize art…,” and he added, “it is no more great or good than anything else I have written.” http://williamsaroyanfoundation.org/
