William Saroyan (1908–1981), born in Fresno, California to Armenian immigrant parents, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 for his play The Time of Your Life — and famously refused it, declaring that "commerce should not patronize art." The play also won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award that year, the first work to win both prizes simultaneously. His novel The Human Comedy (1943), drawn from his Armenian-American Fresno childhood, became a beloved American classic.
617Notable Armenians
