William Saroyan (who also wrote under the pseudonym Sirak Gory an) was the fourth child of Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan, who fled their native Armenia to escape ethnic persecution. They settled in Fresno, California, where Saroyan was born on August 31, 1908. Three years later, Armenak died. Impoverished, Takoohi sent the children to an orphanage, where they stayed for four years until she could provide for them.

Saroyan dropped out of high school and worked as a telegram messenger until 1926, when he moved to San Francisco to pursue a career in writing. After years of writing stories for magazines, Saroyan released his first collection in 1934 titled The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. It was a bestseller, and the title story, which was first published in Story magazine in 1934, won the prestigious O. Henry Award. "Resurrection of a Life" first appeared in Story magazine in 1935, and was...