Armenia hasn't forgotten Saroyan

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Armenia hasn't forgotten Saroyan

 

By Haykaram Nahapetyan

 

YEREVAN, Armenia -- William Saroyan was born 100 years ago and 7,000 miles away. But Armenia is determined to remember him.

 

Saroyan was a Fresno-born author and writer for stage and screen who became a celebrity before World War II with books such as "The Human Comedy" and plays such as "The Time of Your Life."

 

To mark the centennial year, government and cultural leaders have launched a dizzying array of initiatives and commemorative events. There will be a statue of Saroyan in the capital city of Yerevan, new translations of his work, stamps, medals, competitions, scholarships and even a street named in his honor.

 

"He was one of the best authors of the 20th century," said Varduhi Varderesian, a popular Armenian actress who has played roles in Saroyan plays and met the author when he visited in the 1970s.

 

"We have to rediscover him this year," she said. "There is a fear lest the new generation gradually forget about Saroyan."

 

Saroyan wrote only in English. But some of his first works were published in an Armenian-American journal, and he often wrote about Armenia and emigrants like his parents. He spoke Armenian and visited the country with increasing frequency in his later years.

 

Saroyan died on May 18, 1981. On that day this year, a delegation of officials, students and teachers led by Hasmik Poghosian, Armenia's minister of culture, visited the tomb in Yerevan where half of Saroyan's ashes rest. The other half is in Fresno.

 

"We have to remember Saroyan not only this year, in 2008, but all the time," Poghosian said.

 

The centennial has sparked interest among ordinary Armenians, said Satenik Avagian, library director at the American University of Armenia. Books by Saroyan are being checked out nearly half again as much this year, compared to 2007, he said.

 

"Not only AUA students, but also lecturers, Armenians and Americans, read his books," Avagian said. "Many of them say they are reading William Saroyan for the first time."

 

The appeal is more than a matter of nostalgia, said writer Artem Harutyunyan.

 

"Saroyan is topical nowadays, as well, because, in this age of arms and industrialization, he retained his human warmth and virtues," he said.

 

Much of the campaign to draw attention to Saroyan is focused on the classroom. Days dedicated to studying Saroyan are planned at more than 200 schools across Armenia, said Silva Achoyan, a Yerevan city official.

 

Armenian education officials are introducing the author to third-grade students by including one of his short stories in textbooks. The literature book for seventh graders contains passages from Saroyan's 1939 play "My Heart is in the Highlands." He also is featured in a new textbook for 10th graders about writers around the world whose families left the country in what is called the Armenian diaspora.

 

Education officials also have organized an essay contest about the writer this year.

 

Several of Saroyan's works are being translated for new editions in Armenian, said Karine Khodikian, the nation's deputy culture minister. Khodikian headed a delegation that visited Fresno in February and returned with several books by Saroyan in English that were virtually unknown in Armenia.

 

And two plays based on Saroyan's stories have been staged in Armenia in recent months.

 

Posters dedicated to Saroyan -- some showing the writer on his trademark bicycle -- can be seen across Yerevan: in the streets, in bookshops, at the Academy of Sciences. Postcards in Armenian and English have been issued as well.

 

"I do not write in Armenian, but I look at the world in Armenian," some of the posters say, quoting the writer.

 

A statue of the author by Armenian sculptor Davit Yerevantsi is taking shape in a Prague studio. Nearly 11 feet tall, the statue is to be erected in the center of Yerevan in August, the month Saroyan was born, and formally unveiled in November.

 

The writer also is being honored with a Yerevan street in his name, stamps bearing the words "Saroyan 100," and commemorative medals. Linguistics students at Yerevan State University have started competing for the Saroyan scholarship.

 

A Saroyan 100 international theater festival is planned for September, and a literary conference in October hopes to draw Saroyan experts from around the world.

 

Perhaps the most offbeat tribute comes from Yura Muradian, an Armenian animator who plans to show a cartoon based on two of the author's short stories --titled "Bitlis," the hometown of Saroyan's family -- in Yerevan at the Golden Apricot international film festival next month.

 

Of all the Armenians participating in the celebration of Saroyan's centennial, perhaps none is as excited as one 9-year-old boy at a Yerevan school that, strangely enough, is called the William Saroyan School.

 

The boy's name: William Saroyan.

 

"I do not know what job I will do when I grow up, but I am quite sure he is my favorite writer," young William Saroyan said. The author's short story "The Stolen Bicycle" is the work he likes best of all.

 

"In one of Saroyan's stories, a pupil says to the headmaster, 'I'm Armenian and I'm proud of that,' " the boy said. "So I'm proud that Saroyan is Armenian, too."

 

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This statue of Saroyan is to be installed in the Armenian capital of Yerevan in August.