Talk:William Saroyan

Armenian name?
It's a little odd that only Saroyan's first name is written in Armenian at the very top, because his first name is English. Can someone with the ability to type Armenian write his complete name there?

Greg (theytsejam) 17:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Saroyan was certainly Armenian, and he should be seen in this light... but this page seems focused on his ethnicity to the disregard of the fact that he was, first and foremost, an author. Personally, I think he was more interested in the art of writing than in his ancestry. I hope this page gets as much attention from Literary-minded folk as it has from people whose only interest is in his connection to Armenia. --Trefalcon (talk) 15:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)trefalcon

Tangent: There's no easilly visble date to "The Armenian and the Armenian". Could anyone fill that(me) in? - 83.13.203.182 (talk) 16:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Confusing sentence
It is not clear which story is being refered to in the second sentence of the third paragraph under "Assessment." (The sentence begins "The story was republished in ... .") —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrYelpir (talk • contribs) 22:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

File:William Saroyan Memorial.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion
The best. I "love" him. --SuperArmenian (talk) 14:46, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Allegation that Saroyan was anti-Semitic needs more accessible evidence, if really supported
The article refers to Saroyan's "virulent anti-Semitism" and also states "Saroyan generally concealed his raging anti-Semitism very well".

There is a reference for this, but it is not online as far as i know, and i think that if the charge of "virulent anti-Semitism" is really supported by the evidence, there should be something more accessible to point to.

Note that according to his daughter Lucy, this is "arrant nonsense". See: 

So it seems that the article should either say something like he was rumored to be anti-Semitic by his ex-wife and a common friend, but his daughter denied this, or a better and more accessible piece of evidence should be offered.

(BTW, i don't know, but it seems like an important fact that should be more settled.)

Son of eugene (talk) 00:10, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not meant to be limited to knowledge that can be verified without a trip to the library, but if you're up to it there's certainly nothing wrong with adding some nuance to what is reported in Aram's books as well as Carol's: the secondary literature that I'm aware of has taken them at their word. The "arrant nonsense" is intriguing, coming from the editor's (Leo Hamalian ed. Willian Saroyan: The Man Remembered) preface, but he gives no context for the quote: is it in Lucy's chapter, not available complete in the preview?  One of the other google hits is from Herbert Gold's contribution to the same volume; on p 181 he says "Saroyan may not have been clean on the matters of love, Jews, family and generousity- Who is? He made many loud claims for himself, but so far as I know saintliness was not one of them." That's not exactly a debunking! Sparafucil (talk) 05:00, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Archivist but conflict of interest?
I tried to add publishing dates for stories and books that were inaccurate or unlisted. I also tried to add the song "Oh! Beauty" to the songs section of the article. I am an archivist at a Saroyan family archive, so I have this verified information readily available. However, apparently that is a conflict of interest because my employer pays me to know about Saroyan. So I can't improve the page? The archives I represent is not for profit and open to the public. It gets no financial benefit from clicks. Granted, I tried to add the institution's website as an external link, but it truly does exist for the purposes of detailing Saroyan's literary legacy for research purposes. What is the ethical outcome here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ForeverSaroyan (talk • contribs) 01:16, 8 May 2020 (UTC)