William Saroyan

Lavishly illustrated with beautiful, evocative watercolors, this record visits dozens of locations influential to the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan, best known for his play The Time of Your Life. Accompanied by well-documented biographical research, this series of paintings highlights places critical to Saroyan’s life, such as his family’s ancestral home of Bitlis, Armenia; the Fred Finch Orphanage in Oakland, where he spent five years of his early childhood; and the MGM Studios in Los Angeles, where he enjoyed a short and tumultuous career as a screenwriter. The majority of this collection, however, explores the beloved vistas of Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley from which he drew his inspiration?from the Armenian churches of Fresno to the sprawling vineyards of the surrounding California landscape.