The William Saroyan Reader, William Saroyan (softcover)

The William Saroyan Reader is the most complete and generous sampling of the first half of an indispensable American writer’s career. Here is the vintage Saroyan of the 1930s and early 1940s, the period during which the short story writer, playwright, and novelist achieves a critical and popular success comparable to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s during the 1920s. The selection has the added distinction of having been edited, introduced and annotated by William Saroyan himself, in effect comprising the writer’s own mid-career overview of the best of his work. Though less celebrated than his earlier work, Saroyan’s later novels and memoirs show no slackening in craft and a steadily deepening insight in human affairs.