When he was fourteen years old, writer Adam Bagdasarian experienced a transforming event: he read William Saroyan's My Name Is Aram. For the young Bagdasarian, this book was a "revelation," as he noted on the National Book Foundation Web site. "The simplicity of the language, the warmth and humor of the narrator's voice dissolved the usual wall between writer and reader and made me feel a part of the stories I was reading," Bagdasarian further explained. Until that point, reading had been a dry occupation, a school assignment. Suddenly, with Saroyan's buoyant yet melancholy tales, Bagdasarian saw the possibilities inherent in words and writing. My Name Is Aram helped Bagdasarian "discover the kind of writer that I wanted to be--someone who, regardless of the subject matter, made his readers feel as though they had found a good companion."

Detailing a Forgotten Holocaust

With his debut novel, Forgotten Fire...