Chance Meetings: A Memoir

William Saroyan

Jan. 2015 · Bloomsbury Publishing

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In his touching and amusing memoir Chance Meetings, William Saroyan gives us a glimpse of the characters that have left an indelible impression on his mind for years to come. From the Armenian neighbourhood of his childhood to the Parisian streets of his formative years, we meet the people that have inspired, perplexed, angered and enamoured him. We meet finely drawn personalities like the Armenian Cabinet maker, that planed wood whilst his mind composed beautiful poems, who would call him into his shop and embarrass Saroyan with his recitations. We visit the tiny desk of the only famous writer in San Francisco, who kindly replied to Saroyan's letter and invited him into his office. And the playful image of his mother, who would caricature everyone from the postman to the president with hilarious precision.
First published in 1978, Chance Meetings builds a picture of the author through the people that surrounded him throughout his life, who shaped and formed a great writer, and were immortalised by his words.

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William Saroyan (1908–1981) was an internationally renowned Armenian American writer, playwright, and humanitarian. He achieved great popularity in the thirties, forties, and fifties through his hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. In 1939, Saroyan was the first American writer to win both the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life. He famously refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that “Commerce should not patronize art.” He died near his hometown of Fresno at the age of seventy-two.