SOURCE: Shear, Walter. “Saroyan's Study of Ethnicity.” MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 13, nos. 1-2 (spring-summer 1986): 45-55.

In the following essay, Shear reflects on Saroyan's portrayal of the relationship between ethnicity and mainstream culture through an analysis of his short story collection My Name Is Aram.

At one time William Saroyan was America's most famous ethnic writer—more famous than ethnic, perhaps. In the late 1930s and early 1940s Saroyan exploded onto the literary scene as a true wunderkind, the writer who was single-handedly revolutionizing the form of both the short story and the drama. He was the man who refused the Pulitzer Prize and argued with Louis B. Mayer over the issue of artistic integrity. As a literary personality, he had an instinctive desire to be a part of the American cultural scene, to feel that he...